Postcrossing Blog

Antonio Alcalá is one of four US Postal Service art directors tasked with designing US postage stamps — including the new Postcrossing stamps coming out later this month! 😍 For 35 years, his Virginia-based studio, Studio A, has also designed books, exhibits, and more—winning local, national, and international awards for design excellence.

Sometime ago, Antonio answered some of Clarisse’s (aka CStar9) questions about USPS stamp design, shared his thoughts on the important role of stamps in society, and described his first official postcard exchange as a postcrosser!

You’ve described stamps as “one of the few ways that our country officially brands itself.” I agree! What’s it like to be in the kitchen where the soup is made?

Being in the kitchen is exciting and exhilarating, but also complex and challenging. We may work on a single “recipe” for years and not be able to discuss any of the process except with our USPS colleagues.

And yes, stamps are a kind of brand. A brand is the outward projection of a company or organization’s personality: What do they represent? What do they want to project in terms of values?

In the case of the United States, we use the flag and our currency to communicate the ideals we want people, regardless of where they are, to associate with our country. Stamps work similarly. They are official, US-approved images that go everywhere in the nation to announce, “These are the people and subjects we feel represent the best of America.”

The stamps get produced in the tens of millions and people see them almost every day. There aren’t many other pieces of design with that kind of reach.

What are some of the unique challenges of stamp design? Have working through any of these peculiarities influenced Studio A’s larger body of design work (books, exhibits, etc.)?

There are many challenges unique to the stamp design experience. Ironically, the biggest challenge is working with such a small format. Creatives are used to working at a much larger scale, and the transition to stamp dimensions can sometimes be rocky (too much detail, colors that start to blend together, compositions that feel cramped, etc.).

The biggest lessons that have influenced my other work have to do with legal issues like copyright law, rights and permissions, etc.

You came to the stamp design world unexpectedly (and late in life), after designing exhibits for the National Postal Museum. If you could go back and chat with your younger self as a History major at Yale, what would you tell him?

I would tell him to continue doing what he was doing because it will get me where I am today!

If, however, I was to change the path somehow, I would tell the student it is more-than-okay to study the arts in college. The world needs more creative thinkers.

How long does stamp design take? What is the average timespan that elapses between Citizens’ Advisory Committee approval of an idea and the official stamp release date?

On average, stamps take two to three years, from assignment to issuance.

Some stamps are designed as singletons, sometimes a set is a pane of 4, and sometimes there are twenty designs in one set. How are those decisions made, about numbers?

We issue what we think the subject demands.

Generally, we try to limit the number of stamps in an issuance because it can get expensive for collectors who want to make sure they have one of each stamp.

I recently finished an assignment that started with four designs. Later, it evolved to ten stamps.

Sometime the subject is complex and requires the ability to show variation. Additional stamps can also make the sheet feel more compelling.

What does research look like for you?

Research can be a deep dive, going down a rabbit hole-like experience, or it may be fairly light. It may involve reading published books and magazine articles, or having conversations with consultants who are experts in the subject. USPS also contracts with a firm who helps me locate appropriate materials based on my requests.

When I’m looking for artists to partner with, it might involve looking through Instagram or online portfolios searching for what I feel is a good match for the assignment.

What is your own relationship to snail-mail, and how has that evolved over time? Anything you want to say to Postcrossers?

I love snail-mail! I like writing and receiving letters and cards, although I seem to have less time to do it these days. I still pay most of my bills the old-fashioned way (by mail). It’s always a thrill to put one of my stamp designs on an envelope before slipping it in the mailbox.

I once registered for Postcrossing. My card went to China (and took a long time to get there and be registered), and I received a card from the Netherlands. It’s so fun! Unfortunately, I no longer have the time to be an active participant.

As for Postcrossers, THANK YOU! You are engaging in a fantastic activity that helps bring people from around the world together. Please keep up your creative mailings!

What excited you most about bringing Postcrossing onto a U.S. stamp issue, and what did you want the set to communicate?

I knew Postcrossing as an international phenomena, and the US stamp program did not yet have a stamp specific to that activity. Announcing this fun, mailing activity to the country via a stamp was an amazing opportunity. The stamps are meant to be distinctive, lightly humorous, and colorful stamps communicating no matter where you are or what you do, getting and sending mail is a joy!

These stamps are triangular, which is a rare format for USPS! How did that shape influence the creative direction or composition?

Early in the development process I thought this might be a good opportunity (good subject/receptive audience) to create a stamp with a non-traditional shape. Our Global Forever stamp is usually a circle, so creating one as a triangle seemed like a fun alternative. Because I decided on this approach before hiring an illustrator, Jackson Gibbs had to work with the unusual shape from his first sketches. He got it right away and did an amazing job adapting the four “stories” to the unconventional shape.

For people that might not know, what does “art director” mean in practice for a stamp issue like this? What parts did you shepherd from start to finish?

Each of the USPS commemorative stamps is assigned to an art director. Most often, that starts with the topic and occasionally some background information. How the assignment is approached, however, is left up to the art director. In this case, I looked at what other countries around the world have published as a Postcrossing stamp. I also talked with people who are philatelists AND Postcrossing enthusiasts to get their perspectives. I then developed ideas about what I hoped to communicate and the general tone of the stamps. At this point, I also decided to try the stamps in a triangular format.

My next step was looking for an illustrator to collaborate with on the assignment. After looking at numerous options, I asked to work with Jackson Gibbs. I envisoned his playful, colorful illustrations appealing to a wide range of people from young to old. Jackson provided preliminary sketches and from those I decided on the four primary subjects. The next step was for me to determine the typography, and to identify the small changes that need to be made on each stamp until everything looked just right. The other part of my job is to communicate with USPS and the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee the progress of the job, making updates based on their suggestions, and then presenting the final set of stamps. Finally, I prepare all the materials for our pre-press team, who turns them into files for the printers.

Our huge thanks to Clarisse for putting together such thoughtful questions, and to Antonio for taking the time off his busy schedule to answer them!

And now… a little celebration! 🎉 To mark the upcoming USPS Postcrossing stamp issue, we’re giving away 10 postcards franked with these new triangular Postcrossing stamps. If you’d like to enter, just leave a comment below and tell us: which of the four stamp designs is your favourite, and why? We’ll pick 10 winners at random and send them a postcard from the First Day of Issue ceremony. Good luck! 💌

HURRAAAAAAAAAY!!! We’ve been waiting a looooong time to share this news: the United States Postal Service is issuing some shiny new Postcrossing stamps! Woohoo!

It’s been a long road to get here: many of you have written to the USPS Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee over the years to ask for a Postcrossing stamp, and we’ve also been working with USPS behind the scenes for quite a while to make this happen. It’s finally happening, and what a huge honor it is for the community. A proper celebration of the joy, generosity, and curiosity that postcrossers put into the world every day.

Anyway, let’s talk about the stamps themselves… because: TRIANGLES! 😍

The new Postcrossing stamps are triangular, which is a pretty rare format for USPS. And yes — that means you can place one right on the corner of a postcard for an especially cool look. Since there are four different stamps to choose from, you won’t always be sending (or receiving) the same ones. These are global forever stamps, which means they are the international postcard (or letter) rate, and you need one single stamp to send a postcard abroad.

Visually, they’re a lot of fun: bold colors and playful scenes with lots of tiny details. They were designed by Antonio Alcalá and illustrated by Jackson Gibbs, and the result is energetic, bright, and unmistakably Postcrossing.

The launch day is May 26, 2026, and there will be a commemorative ceremony at the the Boston 2026 World Expo — and everyone’s invited! Even better: there will be Postcrossing meetups every day of the show (which is free!), so bring postcards, say hi, and let’s celebrate together. No worries if you can’t make it to Boston — like any other USPS stamps, these will be available online and at post offices around the country.

We’ll share more details (including meetup info and other products that will be available along with the stamps) as we get closer to the date. But for now, we’re just going to sit here grinning at these gorgeous triangles for a while.

USA postcrossers: are you ready? And everyone else: who’s hoping to receive one of these on a postcard very soon?

To mark Postcrossing’s 20th birthday, PostNL commissioned Gouda‑based designer Sandra Smulders (whose portfolio already includes quite a few Dutch stamps) to create a celebratory stamp. On July 14, the new stamps went on sale — a lively sheet of red‑white‑blue zigzags that hints at both the Dutch flag and the criss-crossing of postcards. We especially like the unique dented pattern on the bottom of the stamp!

We spoke with Sandra about the ideas behind the design, the little details hidden in each stamp, and how it feels to watch her work fly through the mail in all the postcards. :)

What was your initial reaction when you were asked to design a stamp for Postcrossing’s 20th anniversary?

I am always happy when asked to design a stamp sheet. Usually, the ideas only come to me once I have delved into the subject, but with Postcrossing, I immediately saw the arrows in my mind’s eye. This ultimately became the basis for the design. So this subject suited me very well in terms of design. I therefore set to work on this assignment with great enthusiasm.

Can you walk us through your creative process for this stamp sheet — where did you start, and how did the concept evolve?

I began with two things in mind: a bold zig‑zag arrow pattern and a horizontal sheet with the stamps centered. From there everything clicked into place.

The red‑white‑blue bars stretch across the sheet to form a subtle Dutch flag; rotating the bottom row of stamps 180° let the blue bar span two stamps and stay the same width as the red and white. To add depth I overlaid each bar with grey tints and simple monochrome icons that sum up Postcrossing: paper‑chain people for the project’s friendship, a world map on the blue “water” strip for global reach, and postcards, naturally. Hand‑written‑style lettering fills the remaining triangles, while the “sorting hook” and the value “1” sit opposite each other for balance. A few diagonal guide lines finish the sheet, tying the layers together and giving the design its sense of movement.

Have you sent or received postcards yourself through Postcrossing, or do you perhaps have a special memory in connection to snail mail that you can share?

I don’t send or receive cards myself and I don’t (yet) participate in Postcrossing. But I do like to send and receive cards or mail. Receiving mail is so much fun. As a teenager, I had several pen pals and sent letters all over the world. I really enjoyed it when I received a reply. Who knows, maybe I’ll take this up again in the future.

As a stamp designer, what’s it like to see your work travel the world on thousands of postcards? :)

It’s certainly very nice that many people around the world will see my work. Even if they don’t know it’s mine. Who knows where my work will end up? And maybe this is a step closer to my international design career.

Has it really been 20 years? The mind boggles at the number… that’s two whole decades spent thinking about this wild idea of connecting the world through postcards. 7,671 days of postcards, stamps, addresses, smiles, and stories. No one could have predicted this adventure would last this long… and yet, here we are. We’re so grateful for all these years, and especially grateful to the over 800,000 of you who joined us for the ride! THANK YOU! 💙

When I reflect on this milestone, I think a lot about creation versus maintenance. Putting something new in the world — whether it’s a project, a community, or even a child — is one thing. But caring for it and keeping it going year after year takes a very different kind of energy. There are countless hours behind the scenes (and the screens) filled with routine, repetition, and sometimes quite a bit of drudgery, just to keep things running smoothly.

But then, there are the stories. The unexpected postcards that bring someone to tears. The joy of discovering a new place or culture. The child learning geography from a map full of colorful cards. The grandma feeling less alone because someone, somewhere, thought of them. All these small and simple connections often make a very big difference in someone’s day, in their understanding of the world, or sometimes even in their sense of belonging. They’re the quiet proof that connection, even through something as analog as a postcard, still matters very much today — perhaps even more.

To everyone who has helped Postcrossing thrive, a very special thank you. Whether you’ve spread the word, hosted a meetup, helped out on the forum, sent feedback or helped support the project financially: you’ve helped keep this idea alive. ❤️ Your enthusiasm and generosity make all the difference.

Now it’s time for celebrations, and you guys have really come through! Our anniversary gallery is also brimming with nice photos of postcrossers and their 20 postcards, which is just a delight to see! If you haven’t posted your photo yet, we invite you to do so today. We’re all a community here, and seeing other people from all over the world who have this one thing in common with us feels really special.

There are an astonishing 179 meetups happening around the world marking the occasion, and so we hope many of you will have (or had) the chance to join to meet old friends or make new ones. 😍 In Germany, in the USA and in Poland (at the Warsaw Post Office 1's Philatelic Shop), special cancellation postmarks have been made for the occasion, so look out for those!

And if you didn’t get the chance to join a meetup, we invite you to join us in the Postcard Lounge today, for a relaxing moment of postcard writing! It’s a silent streaming room and an experiment in connection — a place where we sit down to write postcards together (but apart). Put some music on, grab your favorite drink and some postcards, and take a seat at our virtual table! ☺️

And last but not least, we also have exciting news for postcrossers in the Netherlands: PostNL is launching a celebratory stamp for this very special occasion! Hoera! 🎉

They should be available on PostNL’s shop from today, and we’re going to tell you more about this stamp in an upcoming interview with its designer… but for now, we leave you with a small introduction to the stamp:

"The Postcrossing stamp sheet, designed by Sandra Smulders, visualises the global exchange of postcards through bold geometric shapes and zigzagging lines. Inspired by the idea of connection and reciprocity, the design features triangles and rectangles symbolising people, postcards, and the world.

A red-white-blue colour scheme subtly forms the Dutch flag, while dynamic lines represent the movement of mail across borders. The central layout and repeating elements create balance and unity, capturing the spirit of Postcrossing—sharing, receiving, and connecting through mail."

So that’s it! Whether you’re joining a meetup, writing a card, or just quietly smiling at your mailbox, we hope you’ll find a little moment to celebrate this milestone in your own way. Eat some cake, raise a glass, dig into your postcard stash, or do a little happy dance — whatever feels most festive to you! And if you do something special to mark the occasion, we’d love to see it: feel free to share your celebration with us and the community on the forum or on social media, using the hashtag #postcrossing20.

Thanks for being part of this journey. Here’s to postcards, to people, and to the power of small things. And here’s to the next 20 years, come what may! 🎉

Belgium might be known for chocolate, waffles and some famous comics (like Tintin, Lucky Luke or my personal favorite, Gaston Lagaffe!)… but from today onwards, it will also be known for some cute Postcrossing-themed stamps! They are out there in the world now, ready to make postcrossers happy both in Belgium and abroad!

We love the unique format of the stamp sheet, designed to look like a postcard itself! Featuring cheerful scenes of all the stages of Postcrossing, it really does a good job of showing what the hobby is all about. The text on the stamp sheet is written both in Dutch and French, the two most widely spoken languages in Belgium.

Naturally, also the cancellation mark is available in two languages!

Also, bpost is also issuing a special First Day Sheet, featuring the stamps in the front and some information about Postcrossing and this commemorative issue on the back.

A meetup was scheduled for today in Brussels to welcome in the new stamp, and we’re sure many postcrossers are heading to the philatelic boutique in Brussels (or more likely, to bpost’s online shop) to get themselves some. They can also be ordered at any post office in Belgium to then have them delivered to your address.

Wherever you are, we hope you’ll soon receive a postcard with one of these colorful stamps!

PS: Veerle (aka veke250) got some of these new stamps at the Skalafila pre-sale event, and took some pictures to show the community what they look like! 😍