About This Stamp
In four charming scenes, the 2026 Love stamps feature pairs of stylized birds in a gentle and colorful world in which hearts appear, like love itself, in sweet and surprising ways.
Whether the bird couples on these stamps are exploring branches adorned with hearts, offering a heart-shaped flower as a token of affection, pecking curiously at hearts that fall like spring petals, or nesting in peace under a heart-shaped moon, their behavior sends a universal message: that togetherness marked by small, thoughtful gestures is the essence of a true and loving bond.
One of the four stamps shows two birds — one light blue with darker blue wings, the other cream-colored with green wings — facing away from each other but overlapping as they share a moment of inspecting green-leafed branches adorned with small white hearts.
On a second stamp, a blue bird with yellow wings holds in its beak a green leafy stem with a red heart-shaped flower, either planning to give it to, or pleased to have received it from, a red bird with blue wings.
On a third stamp, two white birds with light blue wings doze contentedly in a nest under a starry night sky made all the more cozy by a heart-shaped moon.
On a fourth stamp, a blue bird with dark blue wings and a red bird with black wings use their beaks to explore a gentle flurry of orange and yellow hearts that fall from above like spring petals and land at their feet.
James Yang designed the stamps and created the original artwork that appears on them. Ethel Kessler served as art director.
The Love stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps in panes of 20. These Forever stamps are always equal in value to the First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director
Ethel Kessler
Ethel Kessler is an award-winning designer and art director who has worked with corporations, museums, public and private institutions, professional service organizations, and now, the United States Postal Service.
After earning a B.F.A. in visual communications from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Kessler worked as a graphic designer and project manager for the exhibits division of the United States Information Agency. Her work was distributed internationally on subjects such as Immigration, Entrepreneurship, Renovation of American Cities, and the Bicentennial of 1976. She was also responsible for exhibits in Morocco, Botswana, and El Salvador.
In 1981, she established Kessler Design, Inc., for which she is creative director and designer. Clients have included the Clinton Government reorganization, the Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic Television, the National Park Service, and the American Institute of Architects.
She has been an art director for the U.S. Postal Service’s stamp development program for more than 25 years. As an art director for USPS, Kessler has been responsible for creating more than 500 stamp designs, including the Breast Cancer Research stamp illustrated by Whitney Sherman. Issued in 1998, the stamp is still on sale and has raised more $98 million for breast cancer research. Other Kessler projects include the popular and highly regarded Nature of America 120 stamp series, a collaboration with nationally acclaimed nature illustrator John Dawson, the 12-year Lunar New Year series with Kam Mak, the American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes 10 stamps issued in 2003, a 2016 pane of stamps celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, and the 2023 stamp honoring Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And many, many others.
Stamp Artist, Stamp Designer
James Yang
Born in Oklahoma, James Yang graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Arts and Design.
Yang has won more than 250 awards for design and illustration, including Best of Show for animation from 3x3 magazine in 2011. His 2018 book Bus! Stop! was selected as an outstanding picture book by the New York Times, and its follow-up, Stop! Bot! received the 2020 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, which recognizes the year’s most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States. His 2021 book, A Boy Named Isamu, received a Picture Book Honor from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, and his 2022 book Go, Sled! Go! received a starred review from the School Library Journal.
Yang has taught and lectured at the School of Visual Arts, the Parsons School of Design, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and the Savannah College of Art and Design, and he has served as an executive board member for the biennial illustration conference ICON. His work has appeared in such publications as Graphis, Newsweek, Forbes, Fortune, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and he designed “Clockman,” a moving sculpture for an exhibition about measuring time at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Yang currently lives in Brooklyn, where his subway wallpaper can be seen on Metropolitan Transit Authority trains.
The 2026 Love stamps are Yang’s first project for the U.S. Postal Service.
