Member Article

Sedley Place designs stamps to celebrate The Queen

Sedley Place has helped celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s status as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch by designing a set of five stamps for Royal Mail.

The agency worked closely with Royal Mail to craft each design to ensure its accuracy and its beauty, with any of the individual elements hand drawn. These elements included the lettering of the ‘Long to Reign Over Us’ title for the miniature sheet and the ‘Longest Reigning Monarch’ lettering which is featured on the Presentation Pack designed by Robert Maude and Sarah Davies. To get the fine detailing of the designs, the stamps were printed using gravure and intaglio print processes.

All five stamps display Arnold Machin’s famous profile sculpture of The Queen from 1966 - one of the most recognised images in the world. They were released on 9 September 2015, the day on which The Queen became the longest reigning monarch.

On the first stamp is William Wyon’s City Medal featuring Queen Victoria, the previously longest-reigning monarch. Wyon’s image was used on stamps during Victoria’s reign. The second stamp pairs Dorothy Wilding’s photograph of The Queen, which appeared on stamps between 1952 and 1967, with Machin’s profile. Sedley Place crafted an oval decorative border to accompany the photograph. The third stamp featured is the First Class definitive printed in a special purple. The fourth stamp features the Badge of the House of Windsor. Sedley Place hand-drew new elements such as a crown, oak leaf wreath and castle, based on advice from the College of Arms. The final stamp displays a device based on the Queen’s Personal Flag, created in 1960 for use in Commonwealth countries.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Alex Sampson .