Stamps by e-mail

To many non-collectors, stamps are apparently becoming an amusing relic of the age before Internet, e-mail, and electronic bill payments. Even much of the real mail I receive bears no stamps. That made finding this image in a commercial e-mail that I received last week a special treat.

This header image from a message sent by retailer World Market depicts a fantasy stamp from “Kingdom Animalia.” What appear to be elephants are the stamp’s subject, while the reddish-orange design (with its English “Post” and French “Postes” in the margins) is reminiscent of Canadian stamps from the first few decades of the 20th century.

To the best of my knowledge, this “stamp” has never existed in printed form, but it’s nice to see a stamp—even an imagined one—used as a major design component in a piece of modern advertising.

Published 2012-07-22