Permanent postage stamps: suggestion of involved proximity to an accessible King

In 2013, designers Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel of Studio Job in Antwerp based the design of the permanent Willem-Alexander postage stamps on a photographic portrait by photographer Rineke Dijkstra (1959). On November 27, 2013, King Willem-Alexander received the first copy of the new permanent postage stamp, featuring the year 2013 as a novelty in the upper right corner.

This photographic portrait of the king suggests the engaged proximity of the approachable king. Using a special graphic 3D printing technique (digital technology), a layered and timeless image of the king was created, which has now been depicted on a postage stamp for well over ten years. With a muted splendor of red, silver-white, and blue, the Dutch flag, as a tricolor, covers our mail items destined for national and international destinations.

As flat as a pancake!

Due to variations in height and depth within the monochrome and spatial portrait of the King, more or fewer prints have been applied. In this three-dimensional image, a varied interplay of shadows emerges depending on the lighting conditions (extremely minimal and slight, effectively invisible). Consequently, the refined and nuanced forms, curves, and folds in the face and hair may appear slightly different. The blue/red color gradient in the background, transitioning from light to dark, places the King's portrait within a spatial setting, creating depth with the necessary variations throughout the entire stamp image. The frontal depiction of the King establishes personal, mutual eye contact between the King and the viewer. In doing so, he stands open to everyone, so to speak. The presence of an oval opening in the perforation on either side of the blue stamp is applied to this stamp only for security purposes (each year with an enormously large print run compared to the other two stamps).

Postal rates overview During the annual postage increases, the use of a number on stamps instead of the face value indication in euros is attractive for practical reasons. The appearance of the stamp can remain the same, but the price of the stamp changes constantly. Initially, the increases are small, but the jumps become more substantial over the years. The year 2024 takes the crown. As of July 1st, the total increase has risen by 13 cents compared to that of the previous year. In the period from 2013 to 2024, postage rates change every year.