About This Stamp
Two hundred years ago the Flag Act of 1818 gave us the basic design of the current American flag: 13 stripes and one star for each state in the Union. This issuance celebrated the anniversary of that seminal legislation with stamp art showing a flag with 20 stars, the number of states in the Union when the Flag Act of 1818 went into effect.
The original art by Kit Hinrichs shows a flag with crisp folds and a layering effect that conveys a sense of the dynamism of the young nation.
Prior to the Flag Act of 1818, the nation’s official flag showed 15 stars and 15 stripes. The expansion of the Union to 20 states by 1817 required a rethinking of the flag’s configuration. Rather than increasing the number of stripes every time a new state joined the Union, the Flag Act reduced their number to 13, signifying the original 13 colonies, and increased the number of stars to reflect the current number of states in the Union. The act specified that a new star would be added on the Fourth of July following the admission of a new state. The United States flag has had 50 stars since July 4, 1960, when a new star was added after Hawaii became the 50th state.
Ethel Kessler was art director for the stamp, which was issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director
Ethel Kessler
Ethel Kessler is an award-winning designer and art director who has worked with corporations, museums, public and private institutions, professional service organizations, and now, the United States Postal Service.
After earning a B.F.A. in visual communications from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Kessler worked as a graphic designer and project manager for the exhibits division of the United States Information Agency. Her work was distributed internationally on subjects such as Immigration, Entrepreneurship, Renovation of American Cities, and the Bicentennial of 1976. She was also responsible for exhibits in Morocco, Botswana, and El Salvador.
In 1981, she established Kessler Design, Inc., for which she is creative director and designer. Clients have included the Clinton Government reorganization, the Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic Television, the National Park Service, and the American Institute of Architects.
She has been an art director for the U.S. Postal Service’s stamp development program for more than 25 years. As an art director for USPS, Kessler has been responsible for creating more than 500 stamp designs, including the Breast Cancer Research stamp illustrated by Whitney Sherman. Issued in 1998, the stamp is still on sale and has raised more $98 million for breast cancer research. Other Kessler projects include the popular and highly regarded Nature of America 120 stamp series, a collaboration with nationally acclaimed nature illustrator John Dawson, the 12-year Lunar New Year series with Kam Mak, the American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes 10 stamps issued in 2003, a 2016 pane of stamps celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, and the 2023 stamp honoring Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And many, many others.
Stamp Designer and Typographer
Kit Hinrichs
Award-winning designer Kit Hinrichs serves as creative director of Studio Hinrichs, a design group he founded in San Francisco in 2009. Previously, Hinrichs had been a partner for 23 years at the international design firm Pentagram. Among the many diverse projects handled at Studio Hinrichs are branding, exhibition design, retail packaging, print and digital communications, and book and magazine publishing. Its diverse clients include, among others, the California Academy of Sciences, Sappi Paper North America, the National Parks Foundation, the San Francisco Zoo, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and Design Within Reach.
Recently Hinrichs founded the Stars & Stripes Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization that today exhibits the eclectic collection of more than 5,000 items including flag memorabilia, weather vanes, quilts, Native American weavings, flag bearer toy soldiers, and hundreds of other objects that incorporate the American flag into their design. “Long May She Wave: A Graphic History of the American Flag,” an exhibition designed and curated by Studio Hinrichs and shown in museums across the nation, assembles thousands of flag-related objects and artifacts from the collection. The foundation’s collection has also served as the basis for several books: 100 American Flags: A Unique Collection of Old Glory Memorabilia (2008), Long May She Wave: A Graphic History of the American Flag (2001), and Stars & Stripes (1987).
Hinrich's stamp designs for the United States Postal Service include U.S. Flag (2018), Flag Act of 1818 (2018), and U.S. Flag Stamped Envelope (2020).