United States Postal Service Railroad Stamps

The United States Postal Service asked my studio, Down the Street, to design five postage stamps that highlight historic railroad stations from around the country. The illustrations are digitally painted and aim to bring out the deep history and complex architecture of each station. The USPS has now officially sold out of the 30 million stamps that were printed, but some may still be in stores!

Client: United States Postal Service 
Art Direction: Derry Noyes
 Illustration: Paul Zappia, Remo Bangayan
Made with: Adobe Illustrator, Procreate

Illustrated stamp for USPS featuring a historic train station in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, with train tracks in the foreground, a brick building, trees, and an American flag on top. The background has a blue sky with clouds and green hills.

The United States is full of beautiful train stations, big and small. These illustrated stamps seek to celebrate that history.

Illustration of the San Bernardino railroad station on a postage stamp for USPS with a purple sky background.

San Bernardino Depot, California

A postage stamp by Paul Zappia featuring the Cincinnati, Ohio Union Terminal with a night sky, spotlight beams, and landscaped pathways.

Union Terminal, Cincinnati, Ohio

Illustrated postage stamp featuring Point of Rocks, Maryland train station, a street lamp, train tracks, green trees, and a blue sky with clouds.

Point of Rocks Station, Maryland

U.S. postage stamp featuring a nighttime illustration of Richmond, Virginia's Main Street Station, railroad tracks, and a bridge, against a starry sky.

Main Street Station, Virginia

Stamp Sheet

In addition to illustrating and designing the individual stamps, we were also tasked with creating a sheet that houses the entire collection for purchase. The final product was heavily inspired by historic railroad tickets and print advertisements.

Sheet of USPS postage stamps featuring illustrations of historic railroad stations from various U.S. states, including Maryland, California, Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, with some stations depicted at night and others during the day.

Process

Before fully illustrating each stamp, we provided USPS with a large selection of railroad stations and compositions to choose from. Sketched compositions are a great way to give everyone a quick and full sense of scope before we finalize the artwork.

A collection of sketches for USPS's historic railroad station stamps by Down the Street Designs