This week’s project was to design a stamp according to the guidelines set by the U.S. Postal Service. Some of these guidelines really surprised me – only dead American subjects, no religious figures, only subjects with national appeal, etc. Starting a project/picking a subject is always the hardest part for me. Last night I was thinking of Alexander Calder, because I was really moved by an exhibit of his work at the Centre Pompidou this summer. But I wasn’t quite sold on it. This morning I watched Mister Rogers’ neighborhood and I knew I’d found the right guy. That show was my favorite as a child, and it was still really great to watch today as a twenty-four year old. In addition to a visionary creative genius, Mister Rogers was also a musician, pastor, and vegetarian. Here’s the stamp I designed:
This was a fun and interesting assignment. When I was Photoshop-ing the main photograph for the stamp, I wondered if my design was really adding anything to such a great photo. I stuck to primary colors – the blue is a variation on the color of his living room walls on the show. Layout was probably the hardest and most serendipitous part. You never know what elements fit where until you try. What do you all think?
Yeeess.
Nice work! The b&w of the make believe town and Mr Rogers asserts that it’s kind of a nostalgic era gone by we all remember as kids…. which gives us the warm, fuzzy feeling we all would want from a stamp commemorating one of our childhood (…and adulthood…) heroes! The warm purple you chose for the border does this too.
My criticism would be that the trolley trumps Rogers a bit too much bc of the size and bc of the saturated color in comparison to the rest, a bit blurry too. At the same time I do enjoy that Fred is hangin in the back, not taking the spotlight –because I feel that’s what he would do.