About This Stamp
Every day across the United States, people of all ages gather on fields, diamonds, courts, and golf courses to engage in friendly and fun competition. In 2017, the U.S. Postal Service® celebrated our nation’s passion for athletics with Have A Ball! Annually, millions in the U.S. participate in the sports represented on the stamps.
Each of the 16 self-adhesive circular stamps showcases illustrations of one of eight sports balls: baseball, basketball, football, golf, kickball, soccer, tennis, and volleyball. A special coating applied to selected areas of the stamps during the printing process gives them a textured feel. The sheet features two of each design. The words “USA” and “FOREVER 2017” and the name of the sport represented appear on each stamp.
Mike Ryan designed the stamps and Greg Breeding served as the art director of the project. Artist Daniel Nyari created the colorful, stylized stamp art. The Have A Ball! stamps were issued as Forever® stamps. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director
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 Designer
Mike Ryan
Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, Mike Ryan was creatively inspired by his father, a pressman. In 2002, he graduated from James Madison University with a B.A. in fine arts with a concentration in graphic design. After working as a designer at Think Design in Richmond from 2002 to 2003, he spent two years at Tradeshowdirect.com before moving to Journey Group in 2005. He served as Journey’s design director from 2007 to 2015, when he became the firm’s creative director. The U.S. Postal Service® Edgar Allen Poe Commemorative Edition booklet, which he designed was featured in the PRINT Regional Design Annual and the HOW International Design Annual. Ryan's stamp designs for the U.S. Postal Service include Have a Ball! (2017), State and County Fairs (2019), Backyard Games (2021), Ernest J. Gaines (2023), and School Bus (2023).
Stamp Artist
Daniel Nyari
Daniel Nyari was born in Romania and grew up in Austria before moving to New York City, where he continued his education in film, design, and fine and graphic Arts.
His work has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, and soccer magazine FourFourTwo. His clients also include AT&T, ESPN, Microsoft, Hyundai, National Geographic, Wired, and GQ. His art has been shown in New York and Los Angeles at Gallery1988, Bottleneck Gallery, and Hero Complex Gallery.
Nyari currently lives and works in New York City and enjoys soccer, avant-garde film, and heavy metal. He draws his influences from Post-Impressionism, the Dutch artistic movement De Stijl, and web design.
Have a Ball! (2017) is Nyari's first stamp project for the U.S. Postal Service®.