class: Images in Communication
brief: design Forever Stamps that unite design history, research, and visual culture, influenced by American art, history, culture, or environment.
timeline: 3 weeks
What is a forever stamp?
a stamp with lasting validity for sending regular letters, regardless of any shifts in postage rates.
What does it mean to design a forever stamp?
Designing a forever stamp involves creating a visually timeless and enduring postage artifact that has sustained aesthetic relevance across diverse cultural and temporal contexts.
Ideation
The idea of highlighting an unconventional feature of American culture was appealing to me because it afforded an opportunity to explore, explain, and gain a deeper understanding of unintentional by-products of the modern culture and society.
While most of these ideations were not unorthodox, the outer-space theme stuck with me because it can highlight the growing conspiracy culture in America.
It can also be celebratory, we were the first to walk on the moon thanks to our very own American scientists! This sentiment felt more aligned with the assignment - a forever stamp.
Vector sketches
UFOs... and redirection
This was my first 'final' stamp. I just couldn't let go of the UFO imagery. While this is one of my favorite iterations, I ultimately scraped it because I felt it strayed too far from the brief, especially if it were to be expanded into a set of 4.
I had to refine and rethink.
A recurring theme was the moon landing and other elements related to American space-age success.
Moving Forward
Through this project, I was introduced to the Library of Congress’ free-to-use and reuse sets of photographs - which is where I sourced a majority of the assets for this project.
I found a great collection of images from ~1968 that I then composited into the final stamps.
Final Product and Instagram Mockup
