Last month’s launch of a First Day Cover saluting heavy metal heroes AC/DC marked our 100th Special Stamps and Collectibles campaign.
Every month for 60 years, Royal Mail have released a set of stamps and souvenirs celebrating an aspect of UK culture, nature and wider society. Linney writers, designers, filmmakers and animators create the marketing campaigns for these issues – from magazines, social media posts and emails, to out-of-home digital signage, YouTube videos and radio ads.
Royal Mail’s Special Stamps and Collectibles team has been drawing on Linney’s film and animation expertise for more than a decade. We shot behind-the-scenes footage of London 2012 Olympic Gold winners’ stamps being printed, built a 360-degree animated reproduction of Beatrix Potter’s potting shed, and have made mini-documentaries with stamp artists and subjects. We even created hidden augmented reality elements for the Animail, Star Wars and Agatha Christie issues.
When Royal Mail invited the Linney Writing and Graphic Design teams to become involved in the marketing campaigns for its monthly collections in 2019, we opened our on-site studio at our client’s London HQ. Our first issue commemorated the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death. Six years later, we’ve worked on editions covering a range of diverse topics, from Windrush, Winston Churchill and the death of Queen Elizabeth II, to Peppa Pig, DC Comics and Harry Potter.
Every edition has its own personality, tone of voice and audience. So, each campaign is an opportunity for members of the Linney Writing, Graphic Design, and Film and Animation teams to showcase their creativity, ability and agility.
Stamps may only be tiny pieces of perforated paper. But they play a powerful role in keeping families, friends, communities, businesses and the world connected. and they’re beautiful, collectible miniature works of art, each with a story to tell. It’s been an honour for the Linney team to help share 100 of these stories.