Like many other design agencies, Heatherwick Studios sends out an official Christmas card every year. Rather than the stamp being an afterthought in the design process, Heatherwick’s cards use the postage stamp as an integral part of the design. Each year presents the stamp in a different guise, either rethinking the concept of Christmas cards or creating a quirky and witty design that is intended to puzzle the recipient. 

As a self-initiated response to Heatherwick’s work, I wanted to explore how I could create a festive greetings card constructed solely out of postage stamps. I thought that it was a natural progression to produce a card that could upon receipt could be hung on a Christmas tree. Royal Mail produces stamps in various denominations, from 1p to £5, and so I was able to use 60 x 1p stamps to create a card that resembled a Christmas bauble. 

The advantage of doing this was that at the time of the completion of this project, the cost to post a standard letter was 60p, and so in theory the stamp bauble could be sent through the postal system.

This project was a fascinating exercise in playing with physical form and geometrics. No internal strengthening was needed during the construction of each bauble, and each stamp is joined using its own adhesive backing to each adjacent stamp. As a finished product it works well - by unifying the envelope and stamp along with the card, it effectively conveys that the medium is just as important as message.