CR Monograph - Stamps

Found this interesting Creative Review Monograph on a the blog Grain Edit. It is from January 2008 and features Iain Follett’s stamp collection.  

In the short interview on the site he sums up his love of stamps 'I came across pictures of the Dutch Postal Service stamps designed by Wim Crouwel. Instantly I was taken back 20yrs to my youth. A key stamp I had always remembered, liked and now really admire. I think this sums up the power of the stamp and good stamp design, an image so small and simple, yet so memorable.?' Its this challenge of small scale of design that i'm excited about in this brief. Who knew I would like stamps so bloody much?! 
Here's a selection from the copy of Monograph: 

Gert Dumbar designed postcode stamps in 1978 to encourage the Dutch to include postcodes in addresses. Very clever. 

British stamps form the 70's. The first is to promote the Royal Institute of Chemistry. Designed by Jerczy Karo. Great use of shapes and overprinting.

 The second is celebrating the centenary of the telephone, Designed by Philip Sharland. Fantastic stamp. Duotone looks ace! 

The stamps are from Japan and celebrate Expo70. Gold metallic ink looks great and the bold colours + shapes make the image clear. Definitely need to use this trick to enhance my designs.

German 1972 WInter Olympic stamps. Great use of halftone images, colour and typography for that scale. 

After much consideration I think that of the two briefs (Fashion Classics & UK Firsts), I want to focus on the UK first brief. It will give me opportunity to research into science, engineering and inventions to form the main focus of my images. This brief could be really good. Once designed for the competition I think I want to screen print posters of the stamps I design as they will lend themselves to the process and be desirable. Lots of work to do until that point though.