About This Stamp
Celebrate the fun and beauty of seashells with four postcard stamps from the U.S. Postal Service®.
Whimsical and lighthearted, the stamp art features stylized depictions of four seashells: the alphabet cone, the zebra nerite, the Pacific calico scallop, and the Queen conch, frequently called the pink conch. The horizontal swaths of white and blue in the background suggest waves washing the shells onto a beach.
The hard, protective external skeletons of marine mollusks, seashells are composed largely of calcium carbonate secreted by the mollusks’ mantle. Frequently ornamented with arrangements of ribs, spines, cords, scales, and grooves, the shells provide protection against predators, aid in burrowing into the sand, and give support to the soft-bodied animals.
Seashells have served many purposes throughout history — as jewelry, decoration, cooking vessels, lamps, even currency — but they were also highly collectible as objects of beauty and scientific study, as they are today. Around the world, clubs and shows attract enthusiasts, who continue to collect shells for their elegance, beautiful colors, and rich variety of shapes.
Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamps. Sergio Baradat created the stamp art.
The word “POSTCARD” on the stamps indicates their usage value. Like a Forever® stamp, these stamps will always be valid for the rate printed on them.
Stamp Art Director, Designer, and Typographer
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 Artist
Sergio Baradat
Sergio Baradat earned a BA in Illustration from Parsons School of Design in New York, and then taught illustration and design from 1992-2004 at his alma mater.
Baradat is responsible for the illustration and design of a number of postage stamps for the United States and the United Nations where he currently serves as Creative Director.
During more than 20 years of working as an illustrator, photographer, and designer, Baradat has won awards of excellence from major design institutions including AIGA, Print, American Illustration, American Photography, and the Society of Illustrators. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Newsweek.
Corporate clients have included AT&T, ITT, the NFL, Esteé Lauder, Condé Nast, and Swatch, among others. Baradat’s work is represented in the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Institution and National Postal Museum, AIGA Design Archives, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, The Cuban Heritage Collection, and The White House. Baradat's first project for the Postal Service™ was the Mambo stamp in the Let’s Dance/Bailemos pane issued in 2005. He also illustrated Tropical Fruit (2008) and most recently Seashells (2017).