Childhood icons stamp their mark

In-depth, exhaustive and onerous research paid off for Glenn Tutssel when he was designing these stamps for Royal Mail. Entitled Big Stars from the Small Screen, the set of five stamps celebrate the 50th anniversary of British-made TV programmes for child

In-depth, exhaustive and onerous research paid off for Glenn Tutssel when he was designing these stamps for Royal Mail.

Entitled Big Stars from the Small Screen, the set of five stamps celebrate the 50th anniversary of British-made TV programmes for children.

From Muffin the Mule in the Forties to Dangermouse in the Eighties, via Sooty, Stingray and the Clangers, the stamps should cause a wave of nostalgia across the country.

“It was a marvellous job,” says Glenn. Especially having to watch every episode of the Clangers to try and find one frame that had all the characters Glenn wanted to include. It never happened. So a composite of four frames brings the characters, including the Soup Dragon, together for the first time.

Glenn even visited Matthew Corbett at his home to look through his father Harry’s personal photo albums for the perfect shot of Sooty and his creator.

The roll call of programmes which failed to make it to the shortlist is equally impressive. Near misses include Fireball XL5, the Woodentops, Bill and Ben, and, because it was made in France, the Magic Roundabout.

One of these stars is the corporate identity for a bank, the other is for a casino. Both involve large sums of money changing hands, but the similarity ends there. The Commercial Bank of Kuwait’s logo was designed by Alan Fletcher and Paul Anthony at Pentagram in 1980. The Casino du Liban’s identity is a 1996 design by Hodgkinson & Co for the Lebanese casino. So, as identity designers are always going on about how you can tell a lot about a company from its logo, guess which represents the casino and which represents the bank. Answers are at the bottom of the page.

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