About This Stamp
In 2007, the U.S. Postal Service issued this pane of 20 stamps with two designs that feature photographs of the polar lights, often known as auroras.
The two designs on this pane of 20 stamps feature photographs of auroras. The photograph of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, was made by Fred Hirschmann of Wasilla, Alaska. It shows the northern lights over the Talkeetna Mountains in Alaska in January 2005.
The photograph of the aurora australis, a phenomenon of the southern polar region, was made by Per-Andre Hoffmann, who currently resides in Manila, Philippines. Hoffmann took the photo in the Bellingshausen Sea along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula in March 2004.
The header image on the pane of stamps is a photograph of aurora borealis by LeRoy Zimmerman of Ester, Alaska. The photograph was taken just outside Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2001.
Jeffrey J. Love of the U.S. Geological Survey served as a scientific consultant to the U.S. Postal Service for this project. He also wrote the text that appears on the back of the stamp pane.
Art Director & Designer
Phil Jordan
Phil Jordan grew up in New Bern, North Carolina, and attended East Carolina University. After Army service in Alaska, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in visual communications. He worked in advertising and in design at a trade association before joining Beveridge and Associates, Inc., where he provided art direction for corporate, institutional, and government design projects. A partner in the firm, he left after 18 years to establish his own design firm where he managed projects for USAir, NASA, McGraw-Hill, IBM, and Smithsonian Books, among others. He was Design Director of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine for 15 years. His work appeared in numerous exhibitions and publications such as Graphis and Communications Arts. A past president of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, he was an art director for the U.S. Postal Service from 1991 to 2014. A resident of Falls Church, Virginia, he is a retired glider pilot and a member of the Skyline Soaring Club.