About This Stamp
This 2008 stamp features a photograph of a sunflower (Helianthus annuus) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The radiant beauty of sunflowers has long inspired photographers, painters, and poets, as well as gardeners, floral arrangers, and countless other admirers, but there's more to these plants than a pleasing appearance. For thousands of years, they have been used in the making of traditional medicines, ointments, and dyes. They also have a lengthy history as food plants: Sunflower seeds are nutritious and can be eaten as snacks or as ingredients in prepared foods; they are an excellent source of vegetable oil, too.
Native Americans were the first people to cultivate sunflowers and create new varieties from them. In the 1500s, European explorers took sunflower seeds from North America to Spain, and today more than 50 different species, with numerous varieties, grow in temperate regions around the world. The stamp shows one of the many modern ornamental varieties.
Art Director & Designer
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.