About This Stamp
Every summer, some of America’s favorite foods are in season. The U.S. Postal Service® celebrates a few of those favorites—corn, tomatoes, cantaloupes, and watermelons—with four stamps. Vintage produce advertising, including 19th- and early 20th-century crate labels, seed packets, and catalogs, inspired these stamp designs. Though not all produce was shipped in wooden crates, the stamp art is especially reminiscent of vintage crate labels.
The four stylized labels are drawn in the same color palette of red, black, green, and yellow-orange. The produce names are in white lettering at the tops of the four stamps. The word “Forever” is enclosed in a banner centered along the bottom of the stamp; the letters “USA” are to the right of the banner.
After America’s railroads linked the East and West Coasts in the 1870s, growers in agricultural areas could ship their products to locations across the country. To distinguish their wares from other producers, growers commissioned special crate labels from printing houses that employed some of the day’s best graphic artists. The artists created designs that featured clever slogans and unusual styles, though the art did not necessarily relate to the produce inside. Illustrations might portray bathing beauties, historic events, landscapes, animals, or the grower’s family.
The Summer Harvest Forever® stamps will be issued in booklets of 20.
Working with an early concept developed by former art director Richard Sheaff, Antonio Alcalá art directed these stamps. Michael Doret was the designer and artist.
Stamp Art Director
Antonio Alcalá
Antonio Alcalá served on the Postmaster General’s Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 2010 until 2011, when he left to become an art director for the U.S. Postal Service's stamp development program.
He is founder and co-owner of Studio A, a design practice working with museums and arts institutions. His clients include: the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Phillips Collection, and Smithsonian Institution. He also lectures at colleges including the Corcoran College of Art + Design, SVA, Pratt, and MICA.
In 2008, his work and contributions to the field of graphic design were recognized with his selection as an AIGA Fellow. He has judged international competitions for the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, AIGA, and Graphis. Alcalá also serves on the Smithsonian National Postal Museum and Poster House Museum’s advisory councils. His designs are represented in the AIGA Design Archives, the National Postal Museum, and the Library of Congress Permanent Collection of Graphic Design.
Alcalá graduated from Yale University with a BA in history and from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in graphic design. He lives with his wife in Alexandria, Virginia.
Stamp Designer, Stamp Artist
Michael Doret
Born in 1946, Michael Doret grew up in Brooklyn, New York, near Coney Island. He graduated from Cooper Union with a BFA in 1967 and started his own design studio in New York.
Doret’s work includes logos, album art, posters, and magazine covers for clients such as the New York Knicks, Major League Baseball, the rock band Kiss, Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Taschen Publishing, and many others. Four of his covers for TIME Magazine are in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
In 2003 Doret expanded his work to include font design. His digital type foundry, Alphabet Soup Type Founders, features unique font designs, which have won accolades from the Type Directors Club as well as from Communication Arts and Applied Arts magazines.
Blending elements of lettering, illustration, and graphic design in his work, Doret finds inspiration from matchbook covers, theater marquees, enamel signs, early and mid-20th century packaging, and various other artifacts of American culture.
An eight-time recipient of the New York Art Directors Club Silver Award, Doret has exhibited work in all the major industry shows and annuals. His Bedlam Ballroom CD packaging project for the band Squirrel Nut Zippers was nominated for a Grammy for Best Recording Package at the 44th Annual GRAMMY Awards.
Doret's studio, which he shares with his wife, illustrator Laura Smith, is in Pasadena, California.
Prior to his lettering work for the Yogi Berra stamp issued in 2021, Doret designed and illustrated four stamps for the 2015 Summer Harvest issuance, and created the art for the 2001 Federal Eagle stamped envelope.