In this project, we were required to create a chronological stamp collection on any topic of our choosing.

Process and Ideation

For this project I chose to create an 18-stamp collection chronicling one significant moment from every year of my life, from birth until I turned 18 years old. I began working on this project by first drawing out all of my memories on tracing paper and scanning them as shown in the image below. 

After this I used Adobe Photoshop to adjust the brightness and contrast of all my scans to ensure that their backgrounds were completely white. Next, I used Illustrator to create the frames (i.e. “stamp shapes”) in which to fit each of my images. Once this was complete, I imported all of the individual stamps into Adobe InDesign and laid them out as shown in the image of my final work below.

Final Work

Personal Prehistory
November 2020
Digital Image
33.3 cm x 50.8 cm

Personal Prehistory is a chronological documentation of significant moments from every year in in my life, presented in the format of stamps. This work relies on symbolism to convey the transitory nature of memories and how we might lose them before we even realise their value. The drawings in each stamp, created using only lines from a drawing pen and devoid of faces or settings is an explicit allusion to the fading of her personal memories, whereas the changing colours and languages indicate the evolution of her life through the cultures she is surrounded by. Finally, the cost of the stamp being “zero” cents embodies the idea that such fading memories are both priceless and worthless.

Work from:
Time with Professor Mike Rader