Stamp Acts
Banfield, Elliott
Samp cts ARTIST ELLIOTT BANFIELD OFFERS A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR RESTORING BEAUTY TO THE U.S. MAIL S tamps matter. In spite of phone, fax, and e-mail, they remain symbols of our respect for...
...Some time ago a retired jazz musician told me that there are three defining elements in music: harmony, rhythm, and melody...
...On the other hand, trying to design artifacts exclusively for our period is a waste of time...
...And stamp printing technology has changed, so current designs must be compatible with current machines...
...Nowadays you have the image, but the type is thrown into the empty space without any aesthetic purpose...
...But because they had intrinsic value...
...Today we are knee-jerk revolutionaries, assuming that our ancestors had it all wrong...
...that was the fashion of his time, when every woman wore a corset and a crinoline...
...If we respect our ancestors we must respect everything they respected—their f. religion, morals, language, art, music, and design...
...Of course, there are alternatives to the most popular, frivolous subjects...
...But even today's "serious" ) "serious" stamps are distinguished by their utterly banal design...
...Americans , have always had a healthy skepticism about our ti public figures, and I'm as skeptical as anyone else...
...Current USPS stamps will never increase in price...
...Then there was the necessary information: the value and so forth, not simply thrown in, but made to conform, to enter into the rhythm of the dance...
...The color of the stamp and the subtleties of the printing were accordingly exquisite...
...And then there was the ornamental frame: a sort of faux architecture, perfectly proportioned, perfectly rendered...
...Look at the preservation movement, look at this typeface (invented in the Renaissance), look at the neoclassical monuments in Washington, D.C...
...Lincoln wore a top hat...
...From the standpoint of this humble designer, our period is the one that's nuts...
...A hundred years ago - things were different...
...5 ELLIOTT BANFIELD (ebanfield@mindspring.com) is a ' designer and illustrator in New York City...
...In spite of phone, fax, and e-mail, they remain symbols of our respect for written communication...
...The United States Postal Service has a duty to provide appropriate images on its stamps, but lately it has neglected that duty...
...The American Spectator October 1999 41...
...Modern stamps, in a subtle way, refuse to do that, which i„‘ is one reason they're so boring...
...Classical design is timeless...
...they are not really philatelic items at all...
...40 October 1999 • The American Spectator "I= Therefore their politics, art, morality—and their postage stamps—belong in the garbage can of history...
...Well, there is room for improvement...
...As for the antique look of my stamps—that's L quite deliberate...
...The value of those stamps has gone up astronomically over the years...
...In the old days, for instance, a stamp's value appeared redundantly on both left and right...
...Hence it bored him, he loathed it...
...And there's no ornamental frame at all, no effort to integrate the image...
...To some, my designs may seem disturbingly traditional, examples of hero worship...
...Any innovation that they introduced was intended to extend the traditions that they had inherited, not to challenge them or to replace them...
...Stamps like that were collected by enthusiasts at the time they were issued, collected in the thousands...
...they were crafted with taste, imagination, patriotism, a sense of history, and even wit...
...Not because of their rarity...
...The need to reinvent means an opportunity to improve or at least / find interesting variations on traditional formulas...
...But maybe I should just let my stamps speak for What a performance...
...The "old" look is alive and well, and quite possibly due for a revival...
...Yet the people of Lincoln's era were deeply conservative in their fashions...
...Rock music, he said, was deficient in two of these elements...
...Or Bugs Bunny...
...Do you want an image of Elvis on the envelope...
...Suppose you get a letter from your lawyer telling you you've inherited money...
...and in that way, it has contributed to the coarsening of our culture...
...No one is proposing to tear them down and to replace them with post-modern gew-gaws...
...There are no gods walking about on this 72 planet...
...They were ignorant of the Internet and DNA and they wore funny clothes...
...Or a note from your beloved accepting your proposal of marriage...
...they were not rare...
...So why not just re-issue old stamps...
...But there are superior people, and their superiority should be recognized...
...Or congratulations from the King of Sweden on your winning the Nobel Prize...
...In stamp design there are also three elements: the image, the type, and the ornamental frame linking the other two elements...
...The subject (typically one of the Founders) was portrayed with gravity and subtlety...
Vol. 32 • October 1999 • No. 10
