About This Stamp
Evoking the romance of a bygone era, the Sealed with Love stamp expresses the joy and beauty of handwritten love letters. The stamp art depicts an envelope fastened with an elegant wax seal. The seal, in shades of red, is a small heart enclosed inside a larger heart, both surrounded by a graceful filigree circle. The exquisite delicacy of the stamp art invites us to send our own love letters, a romantic gesture that never goes out of style.
The Victorians were ardent letter writers and believed that there was a proper way to compose letters, particularly love letters. Etiquette manuals aided Victorian romantics in penning appropriate letters to their beloveds. While these books reflected the Victorian obsession with propriety, the senders still wished to make their feelings known, and there was a precise etiquette for using sealing wax. Although today red is the color most associated with passion, in the mid-1800s, blue was the color of love, with wax of various shades denoting the degree of emotion felt by the sender.
Graphic designer Louise Fili worked with art director Derry Noyes on this stamp. Jessica Hische was the illustrator.
The Sealed with Love stamp is being issued as a Forever® stamp. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce rate.
Stamp Art Director
Derry Noyes
For more than 40 years Derry Noyes has designed and provided art direction for close to 800 United States postage stamps and stamp products. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Hampshire College and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University.
Noyes worked as a graphics designer at Beveridge and Associates, a Washington, D.C., firm, until 1979 when she established her own design firm, Derry Noyes Graphics. Her clients have included museums, corporations, foundations, and architectural and educational institutions. Her work has been honored by American Illustration, the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, Communication Arts, Critique magazine, Graphis, Creativity International, and the Society of Illustrators.
Before becoming an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, she served as a member of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 1981 to 1983.
Noyes is a resident of Washington, D.C.
Stamp Designer
Louise Fili
Designer Louise Fili grew up in New Jersey, the daughter of two schoolteachers from Italy, and fell in love with her parents’ homeland at the age of 16. Her passion for Italian design, typography, and food has informed her career as a designer ever since.
From 1978 to 1989, Fili served as art director of Pantheon Books, where she designed more than 2,000 book jackets. In 1989, she opened Louise Fili Ltd., a design firm specializing in food packaging and restaurant identities. She is the author or co-author of more than 20 books, including Elegantissima, Grafica della Strada, Graphique de la Rue, Scripts, Euro Deco, and Typology.
Fili teaches at New York’s School of Visual Arts and at the school’s Masters Workshop in Rome each summer. In 2004, she was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame. She has also received lifetime achievement awards from both the AIGA and the Type Directors Club.
Fili lives in New York with her husband and co-author, Steven Heller.
Fili’s projects for the U.S. Postal Service® include Love Skywriting (2017), Sealed With Love (2013), and Love Ribbons (2012).
Illustrator
Jessica Hische
Growing up in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Jessica Hische always knew she wanted to be an artist. Her first professional drawing project was a mural for a restaurant in her hometown. She went on to study graphic and interactive design at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, graduating with a B.F.A. in 2006.
Hische began her career as a graphic designer in Philadelphia before moving to New York City to pursue her passion for illustration. A freelance designer since 2009, her clients have included Penguin Books, The New York Times, American Express, OXFAM America, and McSweeney’s. Hische also worked closely with director Wes Anderson to create the title design and credits for Moonrise Kingdom.
Using color and whimsy, Hische infuses a unique style into her typographical designs. “A friend of mine described it once as ‘equal parts design, typography, illustration, brown sugar, and heavy cream,’” she says. “I create letterform-focused artwork that always has a homemade warmth to it.”
Hische’s projects for the U.S. Postal Service® include Love Skywriting (2017), Forever Hearts (2015), Sealed With Love (2013), and Love Ribbons (2012). She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Russ, and their cats, Billy and Olive.