“Stamps are more than just a form of prepaid postage, they are miniature ambassadors that vibrantly narrate our lives,” said Johan van Wyk, senior manager of philatelic services for the SA Post Office. The World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 (WDC 2014) stamp will need to do just that, illustrate and capture Cape Town’s rich design culture. Van Wyk was speaking ahead of the launch of the WDC 2014 Stamp Design Competition.
The winning designer will win a R22 000 cash prize, while the runners up will receive R15 000 and R10 000 respectively.
Entrants are allowed to conceptualise the theme in their own discipline and use any medium from digital to oil and even water color to create the design. The different choices of images for stamps are nearly unlimited and designers have artistic freedom as long as they stay within the preconditioned themes.
Five stamps need to be designed per entry and each one should reflect a WDC 2014 theme:
- Live Design. Transform Life
- African Innovation. Global Conversation
- Bridging The Divide
- Today for Tomorrow
- Beautiful Spaces. Beautiful Things
“We have a proud history of supporting local designers and enabling them to develop their skills. We are hoping this competition will leverage the stamp design industry and create new interest for the discipline,” says van Wyk.
Alayne Reesberg, CEO of Cape Town Design NPC (the implementation agency for WDC 2014), lauded the initiative taken by the SA Post Office to launch a stamp design competition based on the themes of WDC 2014. “We look forward to the stamp designs and believe it will form an important part of the legacies we are creating for 2014 and beyond. This will definitely be a collectors’ item,” said Reesberg.
The winning stamps will be launched in early 2014. Entries close on 30 September 2013 and entry forms with submission guidelines can be found here and more information on the themes can be found at www.wdccapetown2014.com.
