Design evolution

Stamp design has undergone a gradual process of evolution, traceable both to advances in printing technology and general changes in taste. Design "fads" may also be observed, where a number of countries tend to imitate each other. This may be driven by printing houses, many of which design and print stamps for multiple countries.


This classic Art Nouveau design of 1900s France and her colonies continued in use into the 1920s.
For instance, although multi-color printing was always possible, and may be seen on the earliest stamps of Switzerland, the process was slow and expensive, and most stamps were in one or two colors until the 1960s.
From time to time postal administrations also try experiments. For instance, the US tried issuing very small stamps during the 1970s, as a cost savings measure. They were extremely unpopular, and the experiment was abandoned.


"Pasteurization" on a Canadian Christmas stamp of 1973.
While modern tastes tend to favor simpler designs, some countries have also put out "retro" designs, using modern techniques to mimic the more elaborate designs of the past, perhaps even with anachronistic elements. A 2004 example is the Lewis and Clark stamps of the US, whose frames are classic 19th-century, surrounding full-color portraits of a quality not available until the latter half of the 20th century.
Design process

Once a general subject has been chosen, the postal administration typically contracts an outside artist to produce a design.
In working up a design, the artist must take into account the rules and constraints as mentioned above, and perhaps additional requirements, such as membership in a series of related designs.


Even as a large-format design, this painting on a stamp of Peru looks like a muddle, and magnification merely shows the physical limitations of the printing process.
In addition, the artist must consider the consequence of working on a small "canvas"; for instance, traditional paintings often reduce into an amorphous blur, and so the stamp designer will opt to pick a single interesting and/or characteristic detail as the center of the design. Similarly, a stamp consisting of simply a portrait will mean little to many users, and the artist may opt to include a visual element suggesting the person's accomplishments, such as an architect's most famous building, or simply add the word "architect" somewhere in the design.

The artist then submits one or more designs for the postal administration's approval. The accepted design may undergo several rounds of modification before entering the production process. The design may also be abandoned, perhaps if circumstances have changed, such as a change of government.
Designs may also be modified as a result of other considerations; for instance, the design of a US stamp honoring jazz musician [??] was based on a photograph showing him smoking a cigarette, but not desiring to be promoting, the cigarette was removed from the design. In general, stamps are not photographic reproductions of the subjects they depict.

Design successes and failures

In the end, successful stamp designs receive relatively little notice from the general public, but considerable praise from the philatelic press. Publications such as Linn's Stamp News will headline the most interesting new stamps on their front page, and report the results of popularity polls.
On the other side, design errors regularly get through the multiple stages of review and checking. Errors have ranged from minute points of rendition (such as the subtly-reversed ears on an Austrian stamp of the 1930s), to misrepresentations of disputed territory in maps, to mistaken text ("Sir Codrington" on 1920s Greece), to the truly spectacular, such as the US "Legends of the West" sheet using the picture of the wrong person. See stamp design error for further detail.
Another category of failure includes designs that are simply rejected by the stamp-buying public. The 1970s-era anti-alcoholism stamp of the US is a well-known example; it consists merely of the slogan "Alcoholism: You Can Beat It!", which must have looked good during the design process, but affixed to the corner of an envelope it suggests that the recipient is an alcoholic in need of public encouragement, and few people ever used this stamp on their mail.
Even so, and despite the rise of e-mail, the three-way conversation between postal authority, artist, and the public that is the stamp design process continues unabated.