Take a closer look – at our stories in stamps

Client — New Zealand Post

Project — Book Design

The design of New Zealand Posts Stamp Annual 2012.

My challenge was to build on an already successful product that had been in market for many years. No mean feat as it was already a beautiful publication.

The album features 12 stamp editions, one for each month of the past year, and is a collectors item with hard cover and inside a slip cover (box).

The product is often sent overseas as a gift celebrating New Zealand.

Opportunities

To feature more of each of the stamps custom art-work at full size.
To create more desire and demand for the product by creating a theme for 3 years. A theme would allow for richer layers of story-telling in addition to the stamp product as we could tell a story of that imagery as well (New Zealand themed of course).

Solution

We settled on a theme ‘take a closer look’ This enabled us to use interesting ‘macro and micro photography’ to zoom into the gecko skin for example on the book case, and then to reveal the gecko on the cover of the book. And additionally to tell the story of the New Zealand gecko within.

The result is a gorgeous coffee table book that showcases New Zealand art, graphic design and culture through stories and stamps.

(And yes we did a photoshoot with a live Gecko! No mean feat but he was a real poser and happy to perch on his stick quietly as we carefully photographed him.