Once upon a time I was an absolutely rabid stamp collector, and I have several boxes of albums stashed away in storage to prove it. It's quite sad to me that online bill-paying has almost completely done away with my need to use stamps, but I still check the USPS site regularly to ogle new designs. None in recent memory, however, have gotten me quite as excited as the new set from Britain's Royal Mail commemorating ten classics of British design. My favorite is the Mini pictured here, but it was a hard call with the London Underground map, the Supermarine Spitfire and the Anglepoise lamp also in the running. Jonathan Glancey feels a little melancholy that the designs so clearly hearken from a departed British past, but finds some hope in some present-day examples:
Of British manufacturing today there is precious little to compare with
the Spitfire or the Routemaster. If you look, though, at smaller
machines and other forms of design, there is still much to celebrate in
Britain from the inventive fabrics of Timorous Beasties, cars like the
Mk 1 Lotus Elise, by Julian Thompson and Richard Rackham, shoes by –
you'll have to help me here – Emma Hope? It will certainly be
fascinating to see what a set of top 10 British designs might be in 10
years' time, and whether or not we might still include a supersonic
airliner and a largely outmoded telephone kiosk on the list – but most,
I can't help thinking will be things you are able to shop for rather
than simply use because they are in, for example, public service or
else stand back to admire because, like Concorde, they are great
designs truly beyond reach.
The Guardian's online gallery actually includes a selection from Glancey of cheeky alternative design classics, from a Dalek to Cadbury's awesome Curly Wurly candy bar. His choices are excellent, even if the mocked-up stamp featuring the dreaded shell suit gave me an involuntary shudder of disgust. I officially hate those things.
