About This Stamp
The Postal Service issued a 32-cent Kwanzaa stamp on October 22, 1997, in Los Angeles, California. The stamp features the seven symbols used to celebrate the seven principles that are the foundation of Kwanzaa.
The stamp is the second in the Holiday Celebrations series. The series was begun in 1996 to reflect a different cultural or ethnic holiday each year. The first stamp in the series was the Hanukkah stamp on October 22, 1996.
Designed and illustrated by Synthia Saint James of Los Angeles, California, the stamps were issued in self-adhesive panes of 50 and self-adhesive vendible booklets of 15. Avery-Dennison produced the stamps in the gravure process.
Stamp Art Director
Derry Noyes
For more than 40 years Derry Noyes has designed and provided art direction for close to 800 United States postage stamps and stamp products. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Hampshire College and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University.
Noyes worked as a graphics designer at Beveridge and Associates, a Washington, D.C., firm, until 1979 when she established her own design firm, Derry Noyes Graphics. Her clients have included museums, corporations, foundations, and architectural and educational institutions. Her work has been honored by American Illustration, the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, Communication Arts, Critique magazine, Graphis, Creativity International, and the Society of Illustrators.
Before becoming an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, she served as a member of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 1981 to 1983.
Noyes is a resident of Washington, D.C.