About This Stamp
Celebrate the joy that flowers bring with two Love stamps from the U.S. Postal Service.
Inspired by old European folk art, the two stamps feature digital illustrations with similar designs: three round, stylized blooms ranging symmetrically along the top, with smaller round blossoms in each of the lower corners. The background color of one stamp is powder blue, and the other is coral. Twisting vines, which hold small multi-petaled flowers, form abstract heart shapes.
Flowers can symbolize many things: romance, of course, but also friendship, sympathy, gratitude, congratulations. Not only are they symbolic and beautiful, but flowers might have more tangible benefits. Studies have shown that flowers can increase happiness, decrease stress, and create a calming atmosphere.
The Postal Service has successfully captured the delight and exuberance of love since its first stamp in the Love series, issued in 1973. These floral stamps, with their colorful blooms and curling vines, are beautiful additions to the series. Released early in the year for use at Valentine’s Day, they are also perfect any time to add floral flair to letters, birthday or graduation cards, baby shower invitations, notes of thanks — the uses are limitless. The colorful stamps will add charm and whimsy to any correspondence.
Greg Breeding was art director; Bailey Sullivan created the original art and designed the stamps.
Love will be issued in panes of 20 Forever® stamps. These Forever stamps will always be 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, Stamp Artist
Bailey Sullivan
Bailey Sullivan grew up in a small town in East Texas. She always knew she wanted to do something creative and for a time considered editorial layout design. At the University of Texas in Austin, she majored in advertising with a focus on art direction. Her work designing ads and experimenting with different styles in her free time led to an interest in creating visually appealing work and discovery of her “voice” as an illustrator.
Inspired by old European folk art, particularly Hungarian and Swedish, Sullivan reinterprets nature though simple shapes, bright colors, and symmetry. She enjoys going to museums to study the hand-done embellishments on old rugs and tapestries for additional inspiration.
Her clients have included Facebook, JetBlue, Lowe’s, Refinery29, and Tesco. Sullivan’s packaging illustration for Tesco Finest received a silver award in Packaging and a bronze in Illustration from The One Club’s ADC Awards.
Sullivan lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Sullivan illustrated the 2021 and 2022 U.S. Postal Service® Love stamps.