San Marino 2003 - focus

San Marino

18th March 2003 - Poster art
Il manifesto - Armando Testa 1968
design : Franco Filanci
printer: Cartor security printing

I asked one of my philatelic friends which was his favourite Europa stamp ever and he told me the 28 euro-cent stamp from San Marino 2003 !

Well, I don't know why exactly this stamp is his favourite Europa stamp among the thousands of Europa stamps issued, but I guess it may have something to do with those two deep blue eyes you see on the poster depicted on this stamp.

PostEurop selected an original subject for the 2003 Europa stamps theme: "Poster art". We knew already stamps on stamps, but now we have posters on stamps !

San Marino chosed two different posters for their Europa issue. A 1893 old poster of the French painter Toulouse Lautrec and a a more modern Italian poster of 1968.


This poster was designed by Armando Testa, a very famous Italian designer who specialised in industrial design and advertisement. He became famous by producing the official poster of the 1960 Olympics in Rome and later for advertising campaigns for well known Italian brands as Lavazza coffee, Borsalino hats, Pirelli tyres or Bacci chocolates. He founded is own advertising studio in his home town of Turin and it's still one of the biggest advertising companies from Italy.

This 1968 poster "Stilla collirio gocce azzurre per gli occhi" was produced for the Italian eyewash product "Stilla".

source of the images : http://www.ibolli.it/indexes/cept/index.php