About This Stamp
Arranged according to altitude, nine of the 10 basic cloud genera are pictured on this pane of 15 stamps. (Nimbostratus, a dark, featureless cloud marked by falling rain or snow, is not included.) Brief text on the back of each stamp identifies and describes that particular cloud type.
The 15 cloud types shown on the stamp pane are: Cirrus radiatus, Cirrostratus fibratus, Cirrocumulus undulatus, Cumulonimbus mammatus, Cumulonimbus incus, Altocumulus stratiformis, Altostratus translucidus, Altocumulus undulatus, Altocumulus castellanus, Altocumulus lenticularis, Stratocumulus undulatus, Stratus opacus, Cumulus humilis, Cumulus congestus, and Cumulonimbus with tornado.
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.