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Series of Finnish stamps calls attention to climate crisis
The stamps react to heat to reveal additional designs and issue a serious reminder of the real effects of the climate crisis.
Berry CreativeBerry Creative, a design studio based in Helsinki, Finland, has received recognition for its three heat-reactive postage stamps that deliver a sobering message about the consequences of the climate crisis: biodiversity loss, black winters and climate refugees.
Commissioned by Posti, the stamps have been shortlisted for graphic design of the year at the 2020 Dezeen Awards.
The base designs of the stamps – a bird, a snow cloud and a depiction of immigration – are printed as black silhouettes in ink that, when exposed to heat from sources such as a fingertip, change from black to clear to reveal additional designs. The bird turns into a skeleton, the cloud into a thunderstorm and the depiction of immigration into one of mass immigration, symbolising the destruction of endemic species, loss of winter snowfall and increase in climate refugees.
“Unlike the effect in the stamp, climate change is not reversible,” a spokesperson for Berry CreativetoldDezeen.
Berry Creative chose to create a sense of urgency by portraying the silhouettes against a background of eye-catching colour gradients with jagged edges. “I wanted to play on a very alarming imagery,” said creative director Timo Berry.
“I dug into the consequences of climate change here in Finland and chose three – snow turning into water and rain in the winters, massive climate-refugee crisis and the loss of endemic species,” he added.