#basic stamps

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Duane Dalton / Basic Stamps / National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) / Stamp / 2014

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Duane Dalton / Basic Stamps / Attu Island Alaska / Stamp / 2014

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— Duane Dalton

Raised in Ireland, designer Duane Dalton has made a name for himself via his elegant, minimal style. Such is Dalton's presence it is shocking to discover that he still works full time at renowned agency SEA. His exquisite personal projects have led to a large following on Instagram and inclusion in prestigious projects including the 100th Anniversary of Coca Cola exhibition.

— Basic Stamps

I am a big fan of self initiated projects and have maintained a couple of ongoing design projects over the past few years. The Basic Stamps project evolved out of an old self initiated project which I found became too restrictive, due to a fixed type system and layout. I was looking for a design project that encouraged more flexibility regarding typography and layout options. So I combined my interest in both design and stamps, and started generating how I think stamps should look whilst maintaining reductive qualities. >>

Some of the stamp designs feature unconventional techniques such as a blind emboss which was used on the USA Moon Stamp. I'm not sure if this method would work on a real stamp, but this project allows me to try alternative methods which usually produces interesting and varied results. >>

The process of creating the stamp design is very straight forward and quite enjoyable. I basically have a list of countries that I would like to design a stamp for, and the list is always growing, so I'm never stuck for ideas. When I decide upon a country, I usually begin by researching their back catalogue of stamps. When sifting through, I'm looking at colours, sizes, price, and anything unique used by that country that could create a more interesting and memorable result. >>

Then, I sketch any initial ideas of how I would like it to look. After the sketching process, it is then a matter of vectorising and crafting the design in Illustrator. >>

Once I'm happy with the outcome I pop it into Photoshop and use my custom stamp template, which gives it a bit of surface texture, so it looks like the real thing as much as possible. >>

Then it's dropped onto Instagram and other social networks. I then wait for the feedback to come in, which fortunately is usually of a kind nature. I always appreciate the responses I receive on these platforms, it's a factor that encourages me to keep going and create more. ∎

Duane Dalton.