Stamps are first and foremost philatelic items, created to facilitate postage. That is the main reason why most people consider them only as instruments that are used for franking letters or parcels. Those of us who have become collectors, have learned over the years to appreciate other aspects of stamps: the topics depicted on them, the characteristics of their shape, form and printing process, the various ways they in which the are used. Yet most of the time, we are focused on an end result, without paying much attention to the processes behind the stamp design and production. Very few of us look into the domain of the artistic design of the stamp.
        The process of producing a stamp is, on most occasions a lengthy one. It can be sub-divided into two general phases. The first phase, the stamp design phase, is the phase in which the artist struggles with the concept, to reach the stage that the product satisfies his artistic idea. Artifacts characteristic to this stage are pencil sketches, hand-colored drawings, computer imaging trials of shape, position and color. The second stage is  the production stage. It usually begins after a selection committee considers a number of proposals submitted by various artists and designers, from which one is chosen to be the adopted design. The production team then commences with generation of print proofs of the stamp, which are carefully examined for quality and precision. This phase ends when the individual responsible for the stamp production approves the plates to be used in quantity printing of stamp sheets. 
        The following paragraphs will provide insight to various aspects of the stamp design process of one of the Israel Klussendorf stamps. Issues related to the production phase are beyond the scope of this article.

Design of the Seasons Greetings Klussendorf Stamp

        In 1992, following the decision of the Israeli Postal Authority to launch a marketing campaign to promote sending Christmas Cards via the Bethlehem Post (see [1]), Yitzhak Granot, Head of Stamp Production Department in the Israeli Philatelic Service, and a stamp designer in his own credit, was tasked with the design of a new Klussendorf Stamp  to be used in this campaign. The task of designing an Israeli stamp with a Christmas motif was not a trivial one, and had to take into consideration what could be acceptable by the relevant governmental authorities and the general public. During the motif research stage, Mr. Granot consulted with various entities related to Christian affairs, e.g. the Governmental Tourist Bureau in Nazareth and the Desk of Holy Sites in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He decided to base his design on Christian motifs and symbols - stars, candles, bells and Holly leaves.These had to be fit into the constraints of the Klussendorf stamp: the given aspect ratio, and the fixed place for the printing of the stamp denomination by the Klussendorf machine (which dictates the position of the triangle marking the decimal point).
        Courtesy of Mr. Granot, we are provided with insight to the stamp design process. Following are seven stamp essays that exemplify the designer's inner-struggle with symbol positioning, format of accompanying text and color selection.

 The  Hand Painted Essays

      Figure 1 is a section of the very first essay of the 1992 Seasons Greetings Klussendorf stamp. The initial layout was one in which the Christian symbols were located at the lower section of the stamp, leaving the upper part free of graphic design elements. Some pasting of blue and gold colored paper was done on the bottom part of the essay-card (not depicted) as initial color trials. In addition, hand painting with blue and yellow color-markers was executed within the stamp design area. As can be seen, the initial coloring scheme was blue and yellow/gold.

Figure 1: The First Hand-Painted Essay

    The second essay (Figure 2) took the design a step further, and introduced the digits of the stamp value. Granot used both color-markers and crayons for this essay, introducing green color for the leaves, and experimenting with an orange-yellowish filling for the stars and bells. 

Figure 2: The Second Hand-Painted Essay

       Once satisfied with the basic design concept, the design was ported to a computerized design workshop environment, and the first computer essay was created (Figure 3). The decimal point triangle and the letters שח  (denoting NIS) were added to the upper section. Country name (in three languages) and stamp title "Christmas" (in English and French) were added to the bottom section.  Another second computer essay (Figure 4) experimented with an alternative single color background (an idea which was dropped). 

Figure 3:  The First Computer Essay: Two shades of blue background with Christmas/Noel inscription	Figure 4:  The Second Computer Essay: A single shade of blue background with Christmas/Noel inscription

        The third computer essay (Figure 5) introduces the change in the stamp title. One of the considerations of the stamp design process is to minimize the risk of antagonizing certain sections of the public, by eliminating controversial issues. In that respect, religion is a sensitive domain, which could potentially spark resentment. To that end, the stamp title was altered from an explicit mention of Christ, to text emphasizing on an aspect pf the Christmas spirit: "Seasons Greetings from the Holyland". Beyond that, as a compromise between the single and dual colored background shading, an experiment with decreasing background color intensity was conducted. Hence the upper section of the stamp is shaded with lighter blue, than that used in the second computer essay.      

Figure 5:  The Third Computer Essay: A single shade of decreasing intensity blue background with an altered Season's Greetings title	Figure 6:  | The Fourth Computer Essay: A two shaded light-blue and red background

        The fourth and fifth computer essays mark the changing of the basic color scheme from blue to magenta and red. Here again, two attempts were made, one with a two shaded background of light-blue and red (Figure 6) and one with a decreasing magenta color intensity background (Figure 7). Following these another attempt was made in which the magenta background was substituted with one of a brownish-red tone.

Figure 7:  The Fifth Computer Essay: A single shade of decreasing intensity magenta background	Figure 8:  The Sixth Computer Essay: A single shade of decreasing intensity red background

        At this stage the design was stabled in terms of the choice of symbols and the basic color scheme. Mr. Granot made another change to dilute the number of symbols leaving only a pair of star and bells, split the stamp title into two rows and change the font of the country inscription. These can be seen in a computer proof simulating a section of a Klussendorf roll strip (Figure 9). This is very close to the final result as we know it: The 1992 Season Greetings Klussendorf stamp (Figure 10). 

 Summary

       The evolution of the 1992 Season's Greetings Klussendorf stamp design presented above, is indeed an interesting opportiunity to study the various aspects associated with artistic design of stamps: selection of motifs, their placement within the stamp boundaries, selection of coloring schemes and shading, and selection of fonts and text placement. In a way these essays represent the artist's inner-struggle with different choices, in his effort to transform ideas and concepts into tangible representations.

         Following the success of the 1992 campaign, six additional Season's Greetings stamps were issued between 1993 and 1998, all but the latter were designs of Yitzhak Granot.

References:

[1] IP Aug. 1993: “Seasons Greetings from the Holy Land: The Story of the Bethlehem Klussendorf Stamp”, by Dr. Josef Wallach & Michal Tor-Ovadia.