Postage Stamp - Design

Design

When the first postage stamps premiered in the 1840s, they followed an almost identical standard in their shape, size and general subject matter. They were rectangular in shape. They bore the images of Queens, Presidents and other political figures. They also depicted the denomination of the postage and, with the exception of the United Kingdom, depicted the name of the country from which it was issued. Nearly all early postage stamps depicted the images of national leaders only, but before long, other subjects and designs began to appear. Sometimes the new designs were welcomed, while at other times changes were widely criticized. For example, in 1869, the U.S. Post Office broke from its tradition of depicting presidents or other famous historical figures on the face of postage and instead used other subjects, for example, a train or a horse. The change was greeted with general disapproval and sometimes harsh criticism from the American public.

Read more about this topic:  Postage Stamp

Famous quotes containing the word design:

    Joe ... you remember I said you wouldn’t be cheated?... Nobody is really. Eventually all things work out. There’s a design in everything.
    Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)

    Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.
    François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

    What but design of darkness to appall?—
    If design govern in a thing so small.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)