Haris Bravo, I1 MYP

Date Time Description/

1. 2.11.2010. 15:10 – 17:00 Starting research on postage stamps

2. 7.11.2010. 14:00 – 16:30 Finish research on postage stamps and symbols

(did not have access to

computer)

3. 9.11.2010. 09:40 – 11:30 Creation of the first design 4. 13.11.2010. 17:00 – 19:00 Writing essay about postage

stamps and programs for drawing

(started an hour later due to short electricity loss)

5. 16.11.2010. 15:10 – 17:00 Starting creation of the second design

6. 20.11.2010. 13:10 – 14:45 Finishing second design 7. 21.11.2010. 14:00 – 15:30 Creation of third design 8. 23.11.2010. 09:40 – 11:30 Starting on the final postage

stamp9. 28.11.2010. 14:30 - 17:00 Finishing the final post

stamp

Designing a postage stamp

Post stamps are small paper rectangles which prove that you paid the postal service fee. The paper they are made of is special, meaning that it has a special texture. They need to have a smooth surface and are sometimes distinguished by horizontal lines made by rollers. Every post stamp consists of an image, the price of the stamp, the name of the country it is going to be sold in and the perforations to make it easier for taking the stamps away one from another. At first, they had the “Bishop mark” created by Henry Bishop which was the first postmark made out of ink. The first post stamp was made in 1840 in England by Rowland Hill and featured the engraved profile of Queen Victoria.

Now days, stamps feature a variety of different images which are or are not related to the country it is used in. The process of creating a post stamp involves the designing of one. For that, artists use computer programs to make a drawing of the image contained on the post stamp because it gives them a cleaner look of the picture and is easier to use with all the different tools in the digital drawing world.

Drawing programs have a variety of tools which can sometimes be either easy of hard to use. Corel DRAW is a program which is relatively easy to use since it is not a professional drawing program. It has a lot of different possibilities and easy to use tools, but if you do not have a basic knowledge you will not be able to take advantage of its options. Adobe Photoshop is another program which is much harder to use. It is known as an editing program that creates stunning pictures that are impossible in real-life yet look so true. A drawing program with a user interface which is easy to draw with is Microsoft Paint. The quality of the finished image might not be as good as one created in Photoshop but the ease of use is much, much greater than in Photoshop.

Microsoft Paint is a program that can be used much more easily than other programs and is my program of choice for this project. The tools are certainly not as too-advanced as DRAW or Photoshop, but it offers an ease of use that no other program can provide. You can make your brush, line or circle as wide as you want compared to the limited sizes in the two other programs. There are no unnecessary effects or cloning tools. Paint has a draw selection tool that none of the other can offer. Until the new version of Paint in Office, the program really needed some tools but they are now added, like rotation, cropping and much easier to use custom color creator.

Post stamps have been around for over two and a half centuries and have been evolving in terms of the way they are made, the materials used, the way they are designed, the illustrations and the shapes of the stamp itself. The modern way of designing stamps is via computer programs. There are loads of them but for the assignment we got, and the level of expertise we have, the most applicable programs are Photoshop, DRAW and Paint, where Photoshop is the most complicated, Paint the

simplest and DRAW the one that is between them. The one that is chosen for this task is Paint due to its simplicity and ease of use.

REFERENCESPostage Stamp. 17 Sep. 2010. 2. Nov. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamp>.

Postage stamp - Definition. 9. Nov. 2010. <http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Postage_stamp>.

Harris, Robin. Modern-day Canadian Postage Stamp Paper. Adminware Corporation. 9 Nov. 2010. <http://www.adminware.ca/checklist/chk_paper.htm>.

Bellis, Mary. History of Stamps. The New York Times Company. 9 Nov. 2010. <http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventions/a/postage_stamps.htm>.

Description of designs

Design No. 1:

This design contains an image of Homer Simpson drooling over his favorite snack: an extra sugary donut. In this image, the donut represents a zero for the price, as in 0,50 KM. Homer Simpson

presents stupidity which is a stereotype about the Bosnian population with a blue background that represents our freedom to be stupid. Also this stamp contains all the needed components: country, price, perforations and the image.

Design No. 2:

This stamp symbolizes Jack the Ripper and the time he has spent killing innocent women. To this day he is unidentified serial killer who terrorized London in the XIX century. The violet color symbolizes murder and the dagger that signifies death.

Design No. 3:

This image shows the national Bosnian meal: Burek. It contains the Burek like picture and has the price the country. The white color symbolizing pureness is brought up to signify the unique look and taste of Burek.