Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
The first is a small (156pp) hardback German production, virtually a design classic in itself (those are stamp-style perforations on the dust jacket), with a parallel German/English text and several reproductions, actual size, of interesting stamps designed by Hans Gunter Schmitz. The bulk of the text, however, is the 'essay' by Bernhard Uske, in which he attempts to set out a philosophy of stamp design, eventually related to the stamps in question. This he does in an impenetrable 'academic' style, of which I offer a typical example: "The world of Schmitz's stamps is a heterophone morphological arsenal with a huge range of narrative, image-logical, pictorial matrices that are activated in the form of the intermezzo, an interlude, that does indeed allow a paradox to take shape: an inter-mezzo, which actually means 'between the middle part'." (p.94)
There are the best part of 40 pages of this sort of thing, and even if you allow for what might have been obscured in translation, you can't help feeling that Professor Uske needs to make himself a tad more clear if his students, much less we stamp collectors, are to understand a word of what he is trying to say. Designer Schmitz's contribution is brief and more approachable, but equally prefers the abstract idea to the concrete statement - which, to be fair, is better summed up in the several fascinating designs chosen for illustration.
By contrast, Graphic Design is twice as long, with comparatively little text and hundreds of stamp designs from all over the world, reproduced many times magnified, all of which might qualify as 'modernist' in style. The two philatelists on whose collections the book is based each contribute to a short Q&A-style feature ("Where did your interest in stamp design begin?", etc.), but actual discussion of stamp design is entirely absent. It's a book to look at rather than to read.
So, we have one book which might have interesting things to say about design-appreciation, but is couched in such ridiculous language as to be unreadable, and one which has many pretty pictures for us to think about, but no guide as to how we might make sense of them. I prefer the actual-size reproductions to the enlarged ones (I think Uske at one point is saying that to enlarge a stamp-image renders it as a quasi-poster or painting, which sidesteps the point of stamp design), but I enjoyed looking at Follett and Thomson's stamps more than grappling with German designspeak.
So, the search for a good book on stamp design continues!
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Ah academia! Ya gotta love it!!
Might your investigation possibly be more fruitful if you focused on great illustrators of stamps (Slavania?) or even art books dedicated to the world of stamps? (Just thinking out loud without knowledge to back it up )
Best,
Dan C.
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thanks for sharing Ian, and commenting.
Frankly, I'd never trust the aesthetics of a man who worked so hard to be obscure.
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Eschew obfuscation!
Don
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Hi Ian,
I enjoyed your reviews very muich. Good luck with finding something much more useful!
From a British perspective, two books that influenced me when I weas young in terms of stamp design were:
* The Observer's Book of Postage Stamps by Anthony S. B. New
* British Postage Stamp Design by John Easton
The Observer's Book is a small book that managed to say a lot to me about the history of stamp design, the adoption of different printing processes and national trends and it highlighted some individual designers.
Here, I'm just referring to the first edition of 1967, not the "updated" second edition which was a much more matter-of-fact book on stamp collecting.
John Easton's book was first published in 1940. When I first read it it seemed to reflect an earlier age. It seems funny now that it was very much closer in age to me when I read it than the Observer's Book is to me now. 
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""The world of Schmitz's stamps is a heterophone morphological arsenal with a huge range of narrative, image-logical, pictorial matrices that are activated in the form of the intermezzo, an interlude, that does indeed allow a paradox to take shape: an inter-mezzo, which actually means 'between the middle part'." "
Of all the terms he uses, inter-mezzo is not the one that I need help understanding. Possibly a poor translation?
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Those interested in stamp design may find this interesting:
"Rejected - Accepted. Life of a Botswana Stamp Designer" by Peter Lodoen
It is available as a free download in PDF form from the "Philatelic Society for Greater Southern Africa" web site http://www.psgsa.org/download/Lodoen.pdf.
Clive
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Clive,
This is a really nice resource. Thanks very much for sharing it. 
Jerrel
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"From a British perspective, two books that influenced me when I weas young in terms of stamp design were:
* The Observer's Book of Postage Stamps by Anthony S. B. New
* British Postage Stamp Design by John Easton"
The second of these I have just ordered up, but the Observer's book has been on my shelves awhile, though published too late for my childhood stamp-collecting days. Anthony New takes a largely technological (as opposed to artistic) slant on stamp design, though his views on the latter are splendidly opinionated, and require a longer analysis (one day!). Are these 'Observer's' pocket books (published by Frederick Warne & Co., London and New York) available in the States? If so I would recommend this particular one. Nigel reminds us that there was a second edition, which may well have expunged some of New's more splenetic pronunciamentos - don't read that one, read this one!
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As some of you may know, stamp design has always been a major philatelic interest for me, even though I have no background in design and thus precious little serious knowledge. There was a thread back in 2015 about what constituted a 'good' stamp design, which threw up a lot of interesting points of view and at least one important conclusion, viz. that there were no design professionals among our membership - or at least none who wished to offer their views. I've had to fall back on published works, of which there seem to be rather few. Here are a couple of examples recently added to my shelf:
The first is a small (156pp) hardback German production, virtually a design classic in itself (those are stamp-style perforations on the dust jacket), with a parallel German/English text and several reproductions, actual size, of interesting stamps designed by Hans Gunter Schmitz. The bulk of the text, however, is the 'essay' by Bernhard Uske, in which he attempts to set out a philosophy of stamp design, eventually related to the stamps in question. This he does in an impenetrable 'academic' style, of which I offer a typical example: "The world of Schmitz's stamps is a heterophone morphological arsenal with a huge range of narrative, image-logical, pictorial matrices that are activated in the form of the intermezzo, an interlude, that does indeed allow a paradox to take shape: an inter-mezzo, which actually means 'between the middle part'." (p.94)
There are the best part of 40 pages of this sort of thing, and even if you allow for what might have been obscured in translation, you can't help feeling that Professor Uske needs to make himself a tad more clear if his students, much less we stamp collectors, are to understand a word of what he is trying to say. Designer Schmitz's contribution is brief and more approachable, but equally prefers the abstract idea to the concrete statement - which, to be fair, is better summed up in the several fascinating designs chosen for illustration.
By contrast, Graphic Design is twice as long, with comparatively little text and hundreds of stamp designs from all over the world, reproduced many times magnified, all of which might qualify as 'modernist' in style. The two philatelists on whose collections the book is based each contribute to a short Q&A-style feature ("Where did your interest in stamp design begin?", etc.), but actual discussion of stamp design is entirely absent. It's a book to look at rather than to read.
So, we have one book which might have interesting things to say about design-appreciation, but is couched in such ridiculous language as to be unreadable, and one which has many pretty pictures for us to think about, but no guide as to how we might make sense of them. I prefer the actual-size reproductions to the enlarged ones (I think Uske at one point is saying that to enlarge a stamp-image renders it as a quasi-poster or painting, which sidesteps the point of stamp design), but I enjoyed looking at Follett and Thomson's stamps more than grappling with German designspeak.
So, the search for a good book on stamp design continues!
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re: Two Books on Stamp Design
Ah academia! Ya gotta love it!!
Might your investigation possibly be more fruitful if you focused on great illustrators of stamps (Slavania?) or even art books dedicated to the world of stamps? (Just thinking out loud without knowledge to back it up )
Best,
Dan C.
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this post
re: Two Books on Stamp Design
thanks for sharing Ian, and commenting.
Frankly, I'd never trust the aesthetics of a man who worked so hard to be obscure.
Login to Like
this post
re: Two Books on Stamp Design
Eschew obfuscation!
Don
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this post
re: Two Books on Stamp Design
Hi Ian,
I enjoyed your reviews very muich. Good luck with finding something much more useful!
From a British perspective, two books that influenced me when I weas young in terms of stamp design were:
* The Observer's Book of Postage Stamps by Anthony S. B. New
* British Postage Stamp Design by John Easton
The Observer's Book is a small book that managed to say a lot to me about the history of stamp design, the adoption of different printing processes and national trends and it highlighted some individual designers.
Here, I'm just referring to the first edition of 1967, not the "updated" second edition which was a much more matter-of-fact book on stamp collecting.
John Easton's book was first published in 1940. When I first read it it seemed to reflect an earlier age. It seems funny now that it was very much closer in age to me when I read it than the Observer's Book is to me now.
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re: Two Books on Stamp Design
""The world of Schmitz's stamps is a heterophone morphological arsenal with a huge range of narrative, image-logical, pictorial matrices that are activated in the form of the intermezzo, an interlude, that does indeed allow a paradox to take shape: an inter-mezzo, which actually means 'between the middle part'." "
Of all the terms he uses, inter-mezzo is not the one that I need help understanding. Possibly a poor translation?
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this post
re: Two Books on Stamp Design
Those interested in stamp design may find this interesting:
"Rejected - Accepted. Life of a Botswana Stamp Designer" by Peter Lodoen
It is available as a free download in PDF form from the "Philatelic Society for Greater Southern Africa" web site http://www.psgsa.org/download/Lodoen.pdf.
Clive
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re: Two Books on Stamp Design
Clive,
This is a really nice resource. Thanks very much for sharing it.
Jerrel
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re: Two Books on Stamp Design
"From a British perspective, two books that influenced me when I weas young in terms of stamp design were:
* The Observer's Book of Postage Stamps by Anthony S. B. New
* British Postage Stamp Design by John Easton"
The second of these I have just ordered up, but the Observer's book has been on my shelves awhile, though published too late for my childhood stamp-collecting days. Anthony New takes a largely technological (as opposed to artistic) slant on stamp design, though his views on the latter are splendidly opinionated, and require a longer analysis (one day!). Are these 'Observer's' pocket books (published by Frederick Warne & Co., London and New York) available in the States? If so I would recommend this particular one. Nigel reminds us that there was a second edition, which may well have expunged some of New's more splenetic pronunciamentos - don't read that one, read this one!
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