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CLP Stamps - The Preliminaries

I very much enjoyed working with designs for Colorado Local Post issues. I discovered how much thought and planning go into designing postage stamps, and came away with a greater appreciation of the talents of those who create these little works of art.

CLP issues invariably began with a notion such as dogsled mail or balloon. Doodles followed, possibilities for presenting the idea graphically. Sooner or later, one concept advanced to the forefront. The next step involved refining the design into its finished form including typography and placement of inscriptions and denominations

The color of the printing ink (not camera ready artwork, which is rendered in black and white) determines the color of the actual stamp. Therefore, I sometimes blocked out designs in various colors or combinations to give me a better sense of what worked best together.

In addition, I made printing experiments using various combinations of frame and vignette colors to get a better sense of a how a subject translated into finished a work. The husky frame and vignette color experiments were done to test combinations in anticipation of creating a definitive set. I discovered that no matter how well you think you can visualize color possibilities, nothing beats actually seeing them.

I had no particular desire to issue a lot of stamps, but rather to do well, within the limits of my capabilities, the ones I undertook. Perhaps more enjoyable than creating the stamps was working with all the wonderful people I met along the way. Folks who enjoyed their recreational pastimes -- ballooning, dogsled racing, diving, and rocketry -- as much as I enjoyed stamps. Together, we had a ball.

The following five pages illustrate some of the preliminary work used in creating CLP issues.

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