Up Close with Nicodemus Loh

08 Apr 2013

Every Stamp Has A Story

In this edition, we get up close with Nicodemus Loh, an old hand at stamp designing. Nico is the designer for "Our City in a Garden" stamp issue. His other notable works include "World Orchid Conference 2011" issue, "Nature Series - Butterflies" issue in 2010, the "Peranakan Museum Collection" in 2008, and the first Zodiac stamp series from 1996 - 2007.

When did you first start stamp designing? Can you name some of the issues you have designed?

I think it was in 1994, a set of four stamps for International Civil Aviation Organisation.

What is your first impression when you were given the theme "Our city in a Garden"?

I thought I heard the statement wrongly. Shouldn't it be Garden in a City? But then I also remembered having seen the line in Macritchie Resevoir.

What gave you the idea for this series of designs?

It is exactly the idea expressed in that description, "Our city in a Garden". I envisioned every town enclosed in greenery.

And the greatest challenge for this issue?

Like what is happening to our forestry. Being limited in space and co-existing in a concrete jungle running with people, it has to pick only a certain kind of native plants or animals. And I feel that challenge. Which animal, insect or plant can I pick that is native to our small island nation now? And for this, National Parks Board has helped me with the selection.

What do you like most about your design?

That it's predominantly circular, or it feels like that looking at it even though the stamp is square. The four stamps are all the same, it's like a hole in the middle. As if every town or concrete space is surrounded by greens, and we are as if being watched by animals.

How do you think this series is different from other stamps?

I did not make it to look different. When the vision appears on paper it became a strong circular form, so much so that it appears different from other stamps. Also the series is different in the sense that both life forms and city scapes are placed together; like Orchard Road with animals and plants.