Dutch Children’s Stamp
postage stamp
concept, creative direction, art direction photography, graphic design
Children’s stamps have been issued every year in the Netherlands for well over half a century. And in 2006 the honor fell to COMA to design the new collection. The assignment was to use photography to design stamps that addressed the theme of “Safety Further.” The money generated by the stamp sales was spent on projects that support the interests of children.
design Working with photographer Corriette Schoenaerts, we photographed children at an inner-city school to reflect today’s multicultural Dutch society. Playing together with rackets, hula hoops, Skippy balls and so on, they learn to live in harmony and create a safe environment for one another. The stamps layout itself features a row of colorfully dressed children at play. We emphasized the circular forms of the balls and hoops by filling in the rounded forms of letters and numbers. The effect is a colorful game between the flat silhouette and three-dimensional space.
client TPG Post, now renamed PostNL, is a Dutch company headquartered in The Hague and responsible for national postal services in the Netherlands. Over the years, numerous prominent designers, photographers and artists have been invited to turn stamps into works of art. As a result, Dutch stamps are celebrated the world over.
collaborator
Corriette Schoenaerts, photography
collections
Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Art Institute of Chicago
