Now this set of vintage commemorative stamps has done the rounds already (chiefly on Grainedit), but I couldn’t resist bagging a set and doing a little post about them.

Peter Murdoch was the hand behind the design and perhaps he has achieved more notoriety for his famous chair and classic freestanding kiosk designs from the 1968 Mexico Olympics. I love the fact that stamp sets like this were (and still are to a degree) a subjective visualisation of the subject matter by the designers themselves. These were produced in 1978 when the British ideal of energy use was positively hopeful and in some respects, shot-shortsightedly hapless. What I love about these stamps is the way in which Peter Murdoch has tried to depict the origin of the natural resources with colourful dynamic layers of the Earth and in some cases, he’s included the actual installation used for extracting those resources. The concept is bold and it encompassed the sense that Britain still had an viable future in energy and industry in what were to most, very uncertain times.

The presentation pack is also an added bonus here. A nice tonal spectrum of sugary orange tones radiating outwards suggests warmth and heat. Under the flap there are a few notes on the details of energy supply and demand – complete with sun-bleached photos of pipelines and workmen drilling for oil. For a country that has let slip of it’s industrial might, these stamps represent a past ideal that seems oddly alien now. Since then, Britain has limped through harsh strikes, factory closures and hundreds of sad mergers and privatisation fiascos. It would feel uncomfortable and twisted to promote coal and oil extraction through stamps today. Perhaps someone out there will do just as good a job as Peter Murdoch did with wind turbines and wave power – Somehow, I’m not sure it would feel as impressive.

Either way, these are lovely and I’ve propped them up on my bookshelf to ogle at over the next few weeks.