PostNL : Sowing, growing and harvesting on a postage stamp

Typography

The vegetables are photographed from various vantage points. The typography on the photo has been placed into a square block on each stamp. Different font sizes have been used within the block, causing the word LAND to increase in size, thereby pushing out the other text.

Mini-calendar

Vegetable gardens can be found everywhere in The Netherlands: as a part of an ornamental garden, as a separate vegetable garden, in allotment gardens and as a nursery or horticultural business. The Mijn groentetuin (My vegetable garden) stamp features 6 vegetables: oak leaf lettuce (leafy greens), eggplant (fruiting vegetables), fennel (bulbous vegetables), radish (root vegetables), sweet potato (root vegetables) and turnip greens (leafy greens). There is a mini-calendar incorporated into the edges of each postage stamp, with a description of which months are best for sowing or harvesting the respective vegetable, both in the greenhouse and in open soil.

Proud of the garden

The Mijn groentetuin (My vegetable garden) stamps were developed by De Vormforensen in Arnhem, comprised of Anne-Marie Geurink and Annelou van Griensven. In their design the vegetable garden is represented so that the various vegetable cultivation stages are clearly visible. Pride in one's garden must also be emphasised. 'That's why it's my vegetable garden and not the vegetable garden', says Van Griensven. She tells how nothing is staged or neatly raked-over during the photography session. 'We want to see the beauty of things the way they are. At most we placed a leaf somewhere else so as to better showcase the potato, for example.

Matched colours

The vegetables were selected based on what the developers thought would be pretty to show. The colours also had to go together. Geurink: 'We opted for a mix of oak leaf lettuce as the base vegetable, the hipper sweet potato, the unknown turnip greens, the increasingly popular fennel, the almost surreal eggplant and the good old radish.'

Availability

The Mijn groentetuin (My vegetable garden) stamp series has 6 different stamps with the value Nederland 1 (The Netherlands 1), intended for post weighing up to 20 grams to a destination within the Netherlands. The postage stamps will be available starting on 19 October at Bruna post offices and at www.postnl.nl/bijzondere-postzegels. You can also order the stamps over the phone from the Collect Club customer service department at 088 - 868 99 00. The validity period is indefinite.