About This Stamp
With this Priority Mail® stamp, the U.S. Postal Service celebrates the remote and stunningly varied Big Bend region. River, mountain, and desert ecosystems coexist in its vast expanses.
The stamp art depicts one of the Big Bend’s iconic scenes: the Rio Grande flowing between the sheer limestone cliffs of Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park. Seen from the canyon’s shadowy depths, a slice of vivid blue sky and towering clouds hint at the Big Bend’s immensity.
The Big Bend is named for the Rio Grande’s sudden left turn that makes the right-angled “V” in the contour of West Texas at the U.S.–Mexico border. The region is cradled within this “big bend” where a visitor finds rare solitude, endless beauty, and some of the nation’s best stargazing.
Summer temperatures often reach 115°F but — defying stereotypical notions of the term “desert” — the forbidding land suddenly bursts with colorful blossoms after a rain. Wildlife of surprising variety includes more than 400 bird species, 1,200 plant species, and mammals including the black bear (Ursus americanus), the mountain lion (Puma concolor), and the bristly, pig-like javelina (Pecari tajacu).
Designed by art director Greg Breeding, the stamp features a digital illustration created by Dan Cosgrove.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Greg Breeding
Greg Breeding is a graphic designer and principal of Journey Group, a design company he co-founded in 1992, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was creative director until 2013, at which time he began serving as president and continued in that role through 2023.
Breeding’s fascination with modernism began while studying design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His affinity with the movement continues and motivates his ongoing advanced studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland most every summer.
As an art director for postage stamp design since 2012, Breeding has designed more than 100 stamps covering a diverse array of subjects, from Star Wars droids and Batman to Harlem Renaissance writers and the transcontinental railroad.
His work has been recognized in annual design competitions held by Graphis, AIGA, PRINT magazine, and Communication Arts.
Breeding lives in North Garden, Virginia, with his wife and enjoys nothing so much as frolicking on the floor with his grandchildren.
Stamp Artist
Dan Cosgrove
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Dan Cosgrove graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1978 with a major in graphic design. After briefly working for the National Park Service in Denver and as a designer at Cato Johnson in Cincinnati, Cosgrove moved to Chicago in 1980 and began a freelance career in digital and traditional illustration.
Cosgrove's designs have appeared in numerous ads, posters, covers, and on packaging. Recent clients include Cunard Line, Dunlop Tire, Fiat, J P Morgan Chase, Miller Brewing Company, Netflix, The New York Times, Shell Oil company, SohoPress, and The Wall Street Journal. In recognition of his work Cosgrove has received awards from Communications Arts and the Society of Illustrators (Gold Medal).
The 2008 Express Mail® and Priority Mail® stamps featuring Mount Rushmore and Hoover Dam were Cosgrove's first projects for the U.S. Postal Service. Since then, Cosgrove has illustrated 27 additional Express Mail and Priority Mail Express stamps. Recent designs include Florida Everglades (Priority Mail) (2023), Great Smoky Mountains (Priority Mail Express) (2023), Monument Valley (Priority Mail) (2022), and Palace of Fine Arts (Priority Mail Express) (2022). He also created the stamp art for USS Missouri (2019).
Cosgrove and his wife live in Clarendon Hills, Illinois.