USPS Announces the Hip Hop Stamp for 2020 #ArtTuesday

Da4aaf bde7e019c8554f62975a79506ecf6851~mv2

You can order the Hip Hop stamp from USPS now on their website! This interview with USPS art director Antonio Alcalá comes via PRINT!

On July 1, the United States Postal Service will issue four stamps celebrating Hip Hop culture, born in Black and Latino communities in the Bronx during the early 70s, through break dancing, MCing, DJing and graffiti art (remember when New York City mayors Koch and Giuliani went crazy ridding the city of graffiti and its makers?). The stamps are designed by USPS art director Antonio Alcalá using photos by Cade Martin. Here, veteran postage stamp designer Alcalá, of Studio A, talks about representing four key elements of Hip Hop for First-Class mail.

I was thinking the other day about how radical and controversial Public Enemy and Run-D.M.C. were during the early hip hop days— four decades ago?—when music, graphics and politics mingled with anti-establishment protest and rebellion. Hip Hop has come a long way culturally, politically and commercially as an American urban creation. How were you able to navigate the history of Hip Hop into a stamp series that was consistent with its evolution?
Your question touches on one of the key challenges when making a stamp: how to condense a vast story into a minuscule image that satisfies a broad spectrum of the public. In short, it’s impossible. There will always be someone who takes issue with the way you’ve rendered the subject. I remind myself complaints about the artwork are reminders that people still care about stamps and what they represent. That’s a good thing.

More specifically, it took a fair amount of time and effort to get to a set of hip hop stamp designs that USPS was enthusiastic about issuing.

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.

Read the rest of the interview here and pick up a sheet of your own!


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — “Packaging” chips in the US

Wearables — Enclosures help fight body humidity in costumes

Electronics — Transformers: More than meets the eye!

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Silicon Labs introduces CircuitPython support, and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — #NewProds 7/19/23 Feat. Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 CircuitPython Powered Internet Display!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.