Royal Mail puts animal magic into stamp design

Royal Mail is launching a set of stamps, called Animal Tales, featuring artwork by some of the world’s leading children’s illustrators, later this month.

Rose Design has art directed the set, which depicts iconic animal characters, taken from popular children’s books.

The special collection includes: Kipper by Mike Inkpen; Comic Adventures of Boots by Satoshi Kitamura; Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, with illustrations by Helen Oxenbury; The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl, with illustrations by Quentin Blake; The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher by Beatrix Potter; Maisy’s ABC by Lucy Cousins; and More About Paddington by Michael Bond, with illustrations by Peggy Fortnum.

The set has been designed to replicate the feeling of a book spread, and the characters have been paired up to create a family of images and give a sense of chronology to the history of children’s book illustrations.

The series boasts unusual production techniques, continuing Royal Mail’s heritage of innovating with design to create one-off collections, such as its award-winning Fruit & Veg interactive stamps, designed by Michael Johnson at Johnson Banks (DW 21 October 2004). The 68p stamp of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, has die holes cut into it – an industry first for Royal Mail, according to Simon Elliott, creative director at Rose.

The series also includes a first day and dual location cover, as well as a presentation pack featuring additional artwork by Sara Fanelli and poems by Roger McGough.

Rose was appointed to the project following a three-way pitch, held last November. It has collaborated with Royal Mail on stamp projects before.

The Animal Tales set will launch on 10 January.