Week 2: Stamp Project

Week 2 began with a nerve wracking presentation to our class. I presented my research on deforestation on prezi. It was my first time using the programme and my prezi came out really well i feel!

On Thursday we were visited by Susan Sex, botanical painter. She spoke to us about her collection of stamps that she designed for an Post 'Wild Flowers of Ireland'! The meeting was very interesting and it was invaluable to see the original artworks. I loved the sharpness and detailing of the flowers on such a small scale. Here are some of the stamps obtained from irishstamps.ie :

In the meantime, I have just been creating more mind maps and making thumbnail sketches from them. Also I have been generating ideas to advertise the message of deforestation but the tricky part is trying to create a positive spin on the topic and to keep the message plain enough that it can be understood through the small scale of a stamp.

"World with a Future"

For this brief we have to design a set of 4 stamps as a means of encouraging the consumer to make positive environmental changes and to also try to educate future generations on current environmental issues.

This project is 3 weeks long; week 1 = research, week 2 = brainstorming and idea development and week 3 = execution of ideas to final designs

With the idea of current environmental issues and the fact that we're dealing with the postal system I've been researching about recycling and in particular paper. After all the postal system is generally made up of single use products ... stamps that permit items to be sent to ONE person sealing an envelope that is ripped open by the receiver and rendered useless. I want my stamps to try and tackle this, there are ideas for reusable stamps and easy open envelopes etc etc but the simplest way to tackle this waste is to recycle.

Further research led me to problems of deforestation. The planet's love of paper is tearing down too many trees leaving once luscious green forests into barren desert land creating a whole host of other problems. Saying that it isn't paper alone that leads to deforestation but it is something we can tackle with the simple solution of recycling our paper waste and in particular our mail.

Although we are in the age of technology where some assume that internet emailing will take over but i feel that the globals posting and courier system has stood the test of time and possibly now is the time for it to 'catch up' and revolutionize itself by supporting the idea of recycling.

Most of my research is presented within a prezi. Click here to view the presentation: Deforestation Prezi

Here are just some photographs of the effects of deforestation:≈

The various images displayed above were all sourced from google and show the numerous forms of deforestation and the aftermath of the destruction.