Stamps in the News - Globally! Here comes the sun in Canada Reported at https://newsinfo.inquirer.net
In 28 cities across the country, a fleet of 37 delivery vehicles — splashed with a big yellow sun and an image of a traditional red, white and blue Canada Post truck riding a rainbow across a multi-coloured landscape emblazoned with the words “Thanks/ Merci”—have hit the road to bring cheer. “I thought, what’s fun and happy and is going to connect with people,” to ease the melancholy and despair felt by many over the past year, said the artist responsible, Andrew Lewis. “I know people have been going bananas isolated at home without their usual social connections.” “From a design standpoint, to convince a corporation like Canada Post to do this with one of their vehicles is a triumph,” he said. “No postal service in the world has done this in terms of this degree of playfulness and such a screwy idea.” The final design was submitted last September and trucks started rolling out in December. The idea was born out of a proposed stamp intended by the postal service “to express gratitude and appreciation” to its 64,000 workers for dealing with a massive surge in parcel volumes during the pandemic. Canada Post reached out to Lewis—one of the
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world’s top poster artists—to design the stamp. The assignment quickly expanded to include a pin for employees to wear, and then a gift box for the pin. “As a joke,” Lewis said, he also submitted a mock-up of a Canada Post delivery truck painted with his psychedelic design. To his surprise, executives “went crazy for it,” he said.
Going postal in Chennai
Reported at https://www.newindianexpress.com Local philatelists and history buffs were recently treated to a special tour through Chennai to trace the city’s fascinating postal history The postal history of Chennai can be traced back to a little over three centuries ago when in 1712, Governor Harrison started a Company Postal Service to carry mails to Bengal. During the colonial era, the mails used to be carried by dak runners, who brought important news from places far and wide. With time, they were replaced by other messengers; soon several receiving post offices were set up and the city’s postal service not only expanded into a systemic structure — with postal rules, laws and authority in place — but also became closely tied to the city’s complex political history and cultural fabric.
