Stamps - First Postage Stamp Concept

Whilst investigating UK Firsts, I discovered that the UK had introduced the first self-adhesive postage stamp in the world, the Penny Black. I thought it would be a good idea to play on this through designing a series of stamps that play on the fact that they themselves were a UK first.

I started off by taking the definitive stamp design with the value and head positioning correct and designed a series of interestingly coloured stamps, the only information on which is the Queens head and  a silver '1st' which references its value as well as the fact it they are a UK first. The sixth black stamp is designed to be a reference in the set to the original Penny Black.

Deciding that the above stamps were a little too minimal and not explicit enough in their message I decided to make more of a feature of the '1st' aspect by making the number larger and introducing different typefaces to the design. These typographic stamps help to make much more of a statement about the fact and the message isn't lost through subtlety.

Moving on from numerals, I thought that the use of the word FIRST would help to heighten the impact of the stamps. Important to choose a typeface with impact that would sing off of the stamp. 

From my shortlist I decided to go ahead with Elston Bold because of its bold form and interesting 'S'. I also decided to move to some slightly bolder colours to added impact. Starting off simply it was just a case of reversing out the head and the word. I removed the '1st' value as I don't think it is necessary with the word present.

A good start, but I though that rotating the word and enlarging it to the stamp height would create a more interesting composition and add to impact and the overall message. Extremely bold and in your face, I particularly like the block type at it lends itself to fitting comfortably in the corners of the design.

Not sure this design is acceptable but I thought it might be interesting to include the Queens head into the design in some way. Using a speech bubble Her Royal Highness is now shouting that postage stamps are a UK First.  

I personally quite like these designs but I don't think Royal mail would go for them. I've also just realised that it looks a little bit like the Queen is being sick. Not sure that's allowed on a stamp!

Continuing the typographic theme, I decided to try spreading the word FIRST across all six stamps. The addition of an exclamation mark makes this possible. The colours have been chosen to create a gradient between the stamps and suggest some sort of order.

Although they work together, when affixed individually to mail the meaning will be totally lost. Time to try out another concept...