Wadden Sea World Heritage stamp with Wadden Sea design route logo

In our country, there are few people who can claim that not only is a retrospective exhibition of a fellow villager organized in the village (May–September), but that a partial image of his has also ended up on a postage stamp. This concerns Jan Loman, who lived and worked in Beetsterzwaag. In 1963, as a close associate of the nature organization, he designed the logo of the Wadden Association. Jan Loman: “Setting Wadden Sea sun looks down over the waterline and projection in three dimensions (visual work, poetry & geometric figure) still visible on the Wadden seabed, before it will be erased by the rising tide.”

Wadden Association

On the 45th anniversary of the Wadden Association in 2010, a square personalized frame stamp (nvph 2694) published featuring the silhouettes of five inhabitants of the Wadden Sea multiple times: seal, sea bass, shore crab, mussel, and eider duck. The 56 silhouettes alternate in the colors dark blue and red. Both fresh colors are derived from the logo of the Wadden Association. The repetition and alternation of color represent the varied richness of life in the Wadden Sea, which still exists thanks in part to the conservation work of the Wadden Association.

The giving and taking of the sea and . . . in the sea!

• The red sun with migratory birds in the sky above the Wadden at low tide illustrates the kinds of things that have ended up in the sea, including a part of a shipwreck.
• The blue forms are shipwrecks, silent witnesses to their demise. The sun in the background, which reappears every day, represents life in Loman's view. In this metaphor, the shipwreck symbolizes man, who perishes and with him his burden.

• The red ship depicts the sinking of a number of ships above Schiermonnikoog in the North Sea.
• The poem by Mis Prins (1992) describes (literally in the background) the sinking of a ship in the waves under the watchful eye of the red sun.

• Simplified depictions of marine animals in the Wadden Sea survive by eating other living creatures as prey.

• Loman also applied the stylization to numerous preliminary designs of the Wadden Sea logo.

Initially, the logo slogan read “wees wijs met de wadden” (alphabet: 3 x a 'w'), later changed to “wees wijs met de waddenzee'.

• Logo 'Be Wise with the Wadden Sea'. The logo of the Wadden Sea Association features a stylized bird with a red sun and a curved horizon or a celestial arch. The sun beneath the high horizon is reflected in the water and mudflats. The bird, as a general concept, represents all migratory birds of the Wadden Sea region. The logo was created by Jan Loman (1919 – 2006, visual artist, poet, and photographer) designed in 1963. It is one of the best-known and longest-used logos in our country. Loman had a strong connection with the nature organization, as evidenced by the accompanying artworks. 'Het wee', derived from the expression 'the well and the woe', is given more emphasis in Loman's art than 'the well'!
• Years later, according to Loman, little has actually improved for the Wadden Sea. His all-seeing eye (literally in the background), the red sun, discovers that his artistic Wadden Sea protest poster still serves its purpose, even after his death. Many proposals and plans on paper have been torn up or crossed out (as is literally depicted). At this moment, rising sea levels and climate change (warming seawater: shellfish seek colder water, while squid are now appearing) are playing an increasingly dominant role alongside, among others, gas drilling!