5weden christmas 2015

The assignment to design this year’s Christmas stamps came naturally to Elin Sandström since she is an avid Christmas card writer.

“Every year I send around forty Christmas cards that I design myself. This year it will be particularly fun to send my Christmas cards since I will be able to frank them with my own stamps”, she says.

Elin Sandström’s idea was to create stamps that have a strong association with Christmases past. To use vibrant colors and stars to help create Christmas symbols that do not feel overdone. “I wanted the stamps to be perceived as enjoyable and poignant. Using understated lighting and colours as well as simple shapes and symbols, a discrete, rather than overwhelming, feeling of Christmas is conveyed”.

She was inspired by Christmas cards from the 1930s and 1940s as well as the popular TV Christmas programs, Karl Bertil Jonsson’s Christmas and the 1958 Walt Disney Presents Christmas special, From All of Us to All of You.

The star rose early in the design stage and shined brighter and brighter as a symbol during the process. “I hope that the stamps’ familiar star shapes and vibrant colors evoke the positive vibes and pleasant atmosphere that I would want to experience myself during the weeks leading up to Christmas”, says Elin Sandström.