About This Stamp
This Priority Mail® stamp features a colorful illustration of the Byodo-In Temple, a popular attraction on the Hawaiian island of O‘ahu.
The artwork shows the Byodo-In Temple as seen by a viewer looking southwest across a nearby pond. The artist created this illustration by first sketching the temple in pencil and then completing the artwork digitally.
Surrounded by peaceful gardens, a meditation pavilion, a reflecting pond, and other areas for contemplation and remembrance, the Byodo-In Temple is located in Valley of the Temples Memorial Park, a private cemetery. This ornate building is a smaller-scale concrete replica of the wooden Byodo-In Temple built in Uji, Japan, which dates to the middle of the 11th century. However, the Hawaiian version of this stunning site is a non-practicing Buddhist temple open to the public for ceremonies such as weddings and funerals as well as concerts, classes, and other events. Well known to locals and tourists alike, the temple has played memorable roles in episodes of several television shows.
The Byodo-In Temple was built in 1968 to commemorate the centennial of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawai‘i. This stamp coincided with its 50th anniversary.
Art director Greg Breeding designed this stamp with original art 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 and Typographer
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.