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Where are the stamps?
I recently bought a sheet of postage stamps
that shows a beautiful scene of the Sonoran Desert.
This sheet of stamps, minus the two stamps that
I already used, is shown in the photo at left.
Although the sheet of stamps is beautiful, it is
difficult to find the individual stamps on the sheet.
This is because the ten stamps are of different shapes
and are placed in a seemingly random pattern. In the
photo at left, I have outlined the location of each
of the ten stamps.
The
edges of the stamps are
nearly impossible to see. This is shown in the closeup
photo by the arrow pointing to one of the stamps.
The only visible indication of
the location of the stamp is the label "USA 33".
However, the "USA 33" can appear in any of the
four corners of the stamps. So, it is still
difficult to find the edges of the stamps.
Design suggestion
One suggestion might be to arrange the stamps on the Sonoran Desert scene into regular rows and columns like a typical sheet of stamps. This would make it easy to locate the individual stamps, but would result in some of the stamps showing uninteresting portions of the scene.
An alternative suggestion to help people locate the edges of the stamps, is to consistently place the "USA 33" in the same corner of each stamp. Thus, after removing a few stamps and seeing where the edges are relative to the "USA 33", the remaining stamps could be located more easily. This visual cue would be even more obvious by outlining just the corner of the stamp with the "USA 33" label. See photo at left.
Of course, it is possible that the U.S. Postal Service does not really want people to use all of the stamps, so the stamps are intentionally hidden on the sheet!
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Copyright © Michael J. Darnell 1996-2010. All rights reserved.
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