Postage stamp: Federal President Theodor Heuss - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1959 - 10

The German Federal Post Office issues some values ​​of the postage stamp series »Federal President Heuss« after a new draft. The values ​​10 Pf and 20 Pf appear on January 31, 1959, the 75th birthday of the Federal President. The graphic designers commissioned with the drafting of the design received a purely photographed photograph taken by Ms. Lieselotte Strelow. The art advisory board of the Deutsche Bundespost has selected this image from a series of proposals based on the principle of achieving a solution that meets the strict brand name. Two proposals came from Max Eugen Cordier, while the graphic artists Prof. Paul Dietrich, Prof. Ernst Böhm and Alfred Finsterer each produced a draft with modifications for different values. The Art Council recognized the clear formations of Cordier as the most convincing, because this artist has managed to give the portrait with all the simplification in the sense of a coin or gems similar resemblance. The Federal Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has endorsed the proposal of the Art Advisory Council to use this work as a basis for its further development and its suggestion that the script should be placed around the portrait in a medal-like form. In addition, it turned out to be necessary to translate the portrait, which was treated in a purely planar tone for letterpress printing and intaglio printing, into a precise line drawing. This goal pursued the further efforts of the graphic artist. In the treatment of the portrait, however, they would have led far away from the origin, that which was actually meant. It was a graphic way to search, which avoided this avoidance of the pressure of the printing technique. He found himself in the almost forgotten procedure of xylography. The wood engraver Willi Seidl, one of the few representatives of this unfortunately dying guild, has given the image the technically usable form and created the final design in collaboration with Prof. Eugen Funk, who finished the typeface. The values ​​according to this new template are also issued with the inscription "Deutsche Bundespost Berlin" for the area of ​​the Landespostdirektion Berlin. Bundesdruckerei Berlin gave the draft the printable version and executed the stamps in the letterpress printing process.