Monthly Archives: June 2016
Osterer at it again: ‘serendipitous’ Star Trek project goes full circle
Irving Osterer said students were able to bring their finished posters to a boardroom at Canada Post’s Riverside Drive head office, affix stamps, and cancel them with a special Vulcan, Alta. postmark.
w part of the City of Ottawa), has a local reputation of offering the region’s best arts program. Nation-wide, it’s recognized for its endeavours, which include Valentine’s Day covers sent by students to family around the country, and more recently, award-winning designs from a competition celebrating Canada’s upcoming 150th anniversary. “What I try to do is come up with something they each can have a piece of,” said Irving Osterer, the award-winning department head who oversees Merivale’s Fine Arts, Technical Education and Computer Science departments. He’s also the co-ordinator of the school’s Focus program, whose 18 students designed a special poster celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Star Trek episode as part of a year-end unit teaching printing technologies. “Anybody that’s going into graphic design has to realize there are certain harsh realities in the industry, and one of those harsh realities is you’re going to have to cross all platforms,” said Osterer. “Increasingly, what’s going to happen with young designers is they’re going to have to cross a lot of platforms; you’ll have to take your artwork and prepare it a certain way because even though the artwork is the same, it’s prepared differently for letterpress and offset.” Continue reading →
The constancy of the stamp collector
For many years and for many collectors, the hobby has been a solitary pursuit—a trend that's expected to continue into the future.
I have often written about the impact of the Internet on stamp collecting, how modern collectors have access to information and stamps at the touch of a keyboard. Those changes are very real, and they do have an impact on organized collecting and stamp shows, but in another way it is a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same. The old stereotype of a stamp collector sitting alone in a room with his stamps does contain more than a grain of truth. For many collectors, stamp collecting is a solitary pursuit. While there is no specific definition of a collector, most of us recognize certain characteristics that separate a collector from a stamp hoarder. The collector is someone who organizes their stamps, studies their stamps, and has a collecting goal. Those are activities best done alone. No matter how social a collector is, or how active they are in a local club, they spend a large amount of time alone with their stamps. Continue reading →