Meet the Artists Behind the USPS’s Upcoming ‘Art of the Skateboard’ Stamps

Last month, the US Postal Service revealed some stamps that are due to be released in 2023. Alongside a stamp honoring John Lewis and some cool microphotography stamps are a series of four stamps featuring the Art of the Skateboard.

Antonio Alcalá designed the stamps, which feature skateboard decks created by four different artists:

Di’Orr Greenwood is a member of the Najavo Nation who does pyrographic art, burning images into the wooden decks of some of the boards she designs. Greenwood also carves cedar wood flutes and teaches skateboarding. From her Instagram, one of decks she’s designed recently:

William James Taylor Jr. is a prolific self-taught artist from Virginia. You can check out his work on Instagram and buy a bunch of decks with his designs — here are just a few of them:

Crystal Worl is “Tlingit Athabascan from Raven moiety, Sockeye Clan, from the Raven House” who currently lives and works in Juneau, Alaska. Her Instagram is here and here’s a recent deck from her website:

Federico Frum is a street mural artist from Colombia who is based in Washington DC; he operates under the name MasPaz. From his Instagram, a recent desk design:

I’m excited to get some of these stamps when they come out later in the year. (via lizzie armanto)

• Antonio Alcala
• art
• Crystal Worl
• design
• Di’Orr Greenwood
• Federico Frum
• skateboarding
• stamps
• USPS
• William James Taylor Jr.

The USPS Introduces New Hip Hop Stamps

On July 1, the USPS is introducing a set of four stamps celebrating hip hop. The stamps were designed by Antonio Alcalá based on photographs by Cade Martin. In an interview with Steven Heller, Alcalá explained how he thought about the design process:

Hip Hop has a long and rich history, and from the start, I knew I wouldn’t be able to represent its totality in one set of stamps. But because it is such an important part of our nation’s art, and one of our most significant cultural contributions to the world, I knew we needed to at least begin representing it somehow. Hip Hop has four widely recognized key elements, or “pillars”: Rap, DJs, Graffiti, and B-boying (known more broadly as break-dancing). Using contemporary images that quickly and accurately depict the genres eased the burden of having to represent the many histories within the subject.

You can preorder the hip hop stamps on the USPS website.

• Antonio Alcala
• Cade Martin
• design
• hip-hop
• interviews
• music
• stamps
• Steven Heller
• USPS

How Stamps Get Designed

Art director Antonio Alcalá, one of four art directors employed by the USPS, talks a little bit about the history behind US postage stamps and how they are designed and produced.

• Antonio Alcala
• design
• stamps
• USPS
• video