About This Stamp
Five stamps from the U.S. Postal Service celebrate the beauty — and popularity — of ferns.
A favorite with gardeners and florists, ferns range from tiny moss-like plants to giants as tall as trees. The ferns featured on the stamps are five of the approximately 380 different species found in North America.
Each of the five stamps depicts a close-up photograph of a different species of fern. The shapes and textures of the fronds stand out against a stark white background, highlighting the placement of the leaflets along each fern's stem. The name of each fern — autumn fern, Goldie's wood fern, soft shield fern, Fortune's holly fern, or painted fern — is placed vertically in capital letters along one edge of the stamp.
Art director Phil Jordan created the stamp art by choosing five images from among dozens of existing pictures by photographer Cindy Dyer. After Dyer isolated the fronds in her photos, providing a white background, Jordan tightened the focus on each to fit within the stamp borders. He rotated some of the fronds to provide visual interest and oriented them in relation to one another to form a unified whole.
The Ferns stamps add elegance to envelopes and are an exquisite continuation of the U.S. Postal Service’s tradition of offering stamps that feature beautiful plants.
These stamps were first issued early in 2014 at the 49-cent, First-Class Mail® rate in self-adhesive coils of 3,000 and 10,000; they are now also available as Forever® stamps in coils of 10,000.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp 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.
Existing Photos by
Cindy Dyer
Cindy Dyer was born in Selma, Alabama, and lived in Texas and Louisiana before settling in the Washington, D.C. area. She knew from a young age that she wanted to be an artist, an ambition encouraged by her parents. After graduating with a degree in graphic arts from The University of Texas-Pan American (now The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) in 1982, she worked in various areas of the arts, including fashion illustration, advertising, and window display.
In 1989, Dyer opened her own design and photography studio, working primarily with trade and professional associations, publishing firms, and small businesses. Clients have included the American Horticulture Society, Hearing Loss Association of America, and the Association for Women in Mathematics. Her photographs have appeared in American Photo, Shutterbug Magazine, Relix, Country Weekly, The Old Farmers Almanac, and Celebrate Home Magazine, among others. Her garden photography is featured online in Nikon’s Learn & Explore series.
Dyer’s favorite place to shoot is in the garden. Her botanical photography produces luminous close-ups that bring details of flowers, plants, and insects to life.
Her projects for the U.S. Postal Service® include Ferns (2015), Water Lilies (2015), Orchids (2020), and African Daisy (2022).
A dedicated gardener, Dyer can be found outside when not immersed in her design work or her many other creative pursuits. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia.