United Nations issues dog-themed stamp for Chinese Lunar New Year

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The United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) has issued a special personalized "dog stamp" to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The stamp sheet consists of 10 stamps of a denomination of 1.15 US dollars, with the UN logo on the left and paper-cut images of dogs on the right, as the Chinese lunar year for 2018 is the Year of the Dog.

'Figure-ground reversal' technique makes the design special. /CGTN Photo

The dog stamp features the artwork of Chinese designer Pan Hu, a renowned Chinese packaging designer. According Pan, the animal stamp designs are accentuated by a visual design technique called "figure-ground reversal," which makes the two dog shapes perfectly match one another and interprets the meanings of "cooperation" and "sharing."

Bright red and gold colors are adopted in the stamp designs. These two traditional colors are also commonly used in the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, the most important holiday for Chinese around the world. This year's Spring Festival falls on Feb. 16.

The dog image has a style of Chinese traditional paper-cutting. /CGTN Photo

"In other animal stamps, we usually only see one single image, so this time I tried to put many together, like a jigsaw puzzle. I think this reversal design represents the concept of cooperation, unity and complementation quite well," Pan said.

The inspiration of the dog image comes from the designer’s pet dog, Duo La. Pan Hu gave this image a style of Chinese traditional paper-cutting, as this stamp shows the UN’s respect and recognition of China's traditional culture.

Designer Pan Hu and his pet dog. /CGTN Photo

This new sheet will be the ninth of the UNPA's Lunar New Year stamp series.

The United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) is the only organization in the world other than a country, permitted to issue postage stamps, which are denominated in US dollars, Swiss francs and euros respectively for the United Nations offices in New York, Geneva and Vienna.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency