About This Stamp
With these stamps, the U.S. Postal Service honors five distinguished journalists who reported — often at great personal sacrifice — some of the most important stories of the 20th century. Art director Howard Paine worked with designer Fred Otnes to create the stamp art. The abstract backgrounds were meant to imply the “worldliness” of the subjects, without referring to explicit events; the fragments of text were meant to suggest headlines of articles by or about each journalist.
Art director Howard Paine worked with designer Fred Otnes to create the stamp art. The abstract backgrounds were meant to imply the “worldliness” of the subjects, without referring to explicit events; the fragments of text were meant to suggest headlines of articles by or about each journalist.
Art Director & Designer
Howard E. Paine
A member of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee before being named an art director in 1981, Howard E. Paine supervised the design of more than 400 U.S. postage stamps. After three decades as an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, he retired in 2011.
For more than 30 years Paine was an art director for the National Geographic Society, where he redesigned National Geographic magazine, developed the children’s magazine, National Geographic World, and designed Explorers Hall. A popular lecturer, he has spoken at Yale University and New York University, among others, and presented programs for the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. A judge for numerous art shows and design competitions, Paine also taught magazine design at The George Washington University.
Paine had been a stamp collector since childhood. In 2000, he designed the catalog for Pushing The Envelope: The Art of the Postage Stamp, an exhibit of original stamp art at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Howard Paine died on September 13, 2014.