Royal Mail

Creating a range of special stamps
(and fulfilling a design ambition).

Background

As part of its traditional commitment to collectors, the Royal Mail briefed Elmwood to design a range of special stamps celebrating the art of the British pub sign. The brief was to concentrate on two themes - famous pub artists, and a historical depiction of pub signs through the years.

Solution

Elmwood carried out extensive research among museums and breweries, and held several meetings with the Inn Sign Society at their headquarters in a Wolverhampton bungalow. The greatest challenge was the durability of the signs themselves - their constant exposure to the elements meant they deteriorated rapidly. In the end, source material was gathered from the artists themselves and their relatives who had kept miniatures of the signs, along with images from brewery archives.

Result

The Royal Mail's special stamps are an institution among the letter-writing public, stamp collectors and especially designers. This tiny canvas represents a goal for many creatives - no less at Elmwood. With the design of these special stamps, we fulfilled one small design ambition. As part of our ongoing relationship with Royal Mail, we also produced Royal Mail's Special Stamps Yearbook for 2002 and continue to create consumer-facing promotional material for Smilers, a collection of seasonally-updated personalised stamps.

More Royal Mail work

Royal Mail's Smilers