On 2 January 2024, PostNL will publish the Experience nature - Birds on Bonaire issue: a sheet of ten stamps in ten different designs. The denomination on these stamps is ‘1’, the denomination for items weighing up to 20g with destinations in the Netherlands. A sheet of ten stamps costs €10.90. The stamp sheet about birds on Bonaire is part of the 2024-2026 Experience nature series dedicated to the Caribbean Netherlands. In the series, four stamp sheets are issued every year, each comprising ten different stamps. The stamps depict plants and animals found in this part of the Netherlands. With thousands of species of plants and animals, the islands in this area have a biodiversity that is unprecedented by Dutch standards. 2024 will consecutively focus on the birds, butterflies, underwater life and flora on the island of Bonaire. Experience nature - Birds on Bonaire features the crested caracara, red-footed booby, mangrove warbler, southern lapwing, Venezuelan troupial, Caribbean flamingo, red ibis, yellow-shouldered amazon, magnificent frigatebird and ruby-topaz hummingbird.
Just like Sint Eustatius and Saba, the island of Bonaire holds a separate status within the Netherlands. The collective name for these three islands is the Caribbean Netherlands. Alongside the countries of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, they form the Caribbean part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Bonaire spans almost 29,000 hectares, making it 50% larger than Texel. Bonaire is home to around 24,000 people, most of whom speak Papiamentu as their first language. The main sources of income are tourism and salt extraction, and the island is a popular destination for diving holidays and cruise ships. Since 2010, Bonaire has been a special municipality, and the island council is the most senior governing body responsible for local legislation. Executive power lies with the island deputies appointed by the island council and chaired by the Governor. The island boasts a relatively large amount of nature. To the north is Washington Slagbaai National Park, which is home to cactus forests, aloe fields, rock formations, salt lakes, limestone caves, sand dunes, blowholes and crumbling limestone terraces. Back in 1969, the over 4,200-hectare park became the Netherlands Antilles' first nature park. The Bonaire National Marine Park has been a legally protected underwater park surrounding the entire island and the uninhabited island of Klein Bonaire since 1979. The 6600-plus hectare park is also home to a coral reef, seagrass and a mangrove forest. Klein Bonaire is also a legally protected nature reserve in its own right. This coral reef-lined islet is home to salt lakes where Caribbean flamingos forage and important nesting sites for sea turtles.
Bird-rich Bonaire is home to over 200 different bird species: breeding birds, winter visitors as well as regular visitors and wanderers. Most of Bonaire's birds live in Washington Slagbaai National Park, situated on the north side of the island. Other famous spots for bird watching include Lac Cai Beach in the east, the Grote Pekelmeer lake in the south and the Karst and Caves Nature Reserve in the north east. Thanks to the large number of freshwater springs, many birds can survive on this Caribbean island, which is usually dry. Besides common birds such as sparrows, Bonaire is home to many species of waterfowl, including the magnificent frigatebird, the pelican and, of course, the Caribbean flamingo. Birds of prey such as the crested caracara and the osprey are also found there, as are waders, gull species and tropical coloured birds such as the rose-ringed parakeet, two hummingbird species, the yellow oriole, the Venezuelan troupial, the bananaquit and the mangrove warbler. The Caribbean flamingo is Bonaire's national symbol. Its image and colours recur everywhere, right down to the name of the reddish-pink coloured Flamingo Airport. The yellow-shouldered amazon is also synonymous with Bonaire. Bonaire is one of the few places on earth where this unique species of parrot is found.
The Experience nature - Birds on Bonaire stamp sheet was designed by graphic designer Frank Janse from Gouda. On the sheet, each bird is depicted in its natural environment on its own stamp. The following ten birds are featured: crested caracara, red-footed booby, mangrove warbler, southern lapwing, Venezuelan troupial, Caribbean flamingo, red ibis, yellow-shouldered amazon, magnificent frigatebird and ruby-topaz hummingbird. All bird photos are incorporated in a graphic layer with circle shapes that are also visible on the sheet edge. Some images also continue onto the adjacent stamp and onto the sheet edge. In several places on the stamp sheet, the designer has added graphics derived from symbols on old topographical maps. These symbols can indicate landscape forms, contour lines, plantings, soil structures and watercourses. The design also features an additional transparent layer featuring monochrome images (both white and in colour) of flora and fauna that are typical of this area. The monochrome images are almost abstract cross the perforations and connect the stamps to each other and to the sheet edge. The following plants and animals are depicted: red ibis and ceroid cactus (top left), melon cactus and yellow-shouldered amazon (top right), mangrove warbler (middle left), magnificent frigatebird (bottom right) and common lantana (bottom right and centre).
The typography used is the DIN 2014; a font designed by Vasily Biryukov from Bulgaria and released by Paratype in 2015. In the captions on the stamp sheet, the designer Frank Janse creatively and humorously expresses his associations with the names, features and appearance of the depicted birds.
Over the next few years, PostNL's Experience Nature series will focus on the flora and fauna of the Caribbean Netherlands. Nature on Bonaire will take centre stage on the four Experience Nature sheets published in 2024. Graphic designer Frank Janse from Gouda has added a new twist to the stamp sheet designs in this series, which PostNL has been publishing since 2017.
Bright colours
The custom design is guided by the bold colours found in Caribbean nature. Janse: ‘In the first issue of this year, you can see the bright colours of birds found on Bonaire. The reason for selecting DIN 2014 as the new font was in order to emphasise the colours even more. This creates a nice contrast between the richness of the birds’ colour on the one hand and the sober, clean typography on the other. The frivolous splashes on the sheet edge have disappeared, and for the first time, I decided to add graphics to the stamps. I associate Islands like Bonaire with old topographic maps. The graphics on the stamps are taken from the symbols used by mapmakers to clarify how an area looks. The stamp sheet about Bonaire, for example, features a typical island shape in the bottom left-hand corner. But you can also see contour lines in it.’
Rawness
The basic design of the Experience Nature series has been retained, including the circle shapes in the background. ‘The circles were applied in a different way, though,’ Janse said. ‘They protrude less far into the sheet edge and I ensured that they run like serrations along the perforation. This represents a certain rawness that I also associate with the topographical symbols on old land and sea maps where the ink has deteriorated. The symbols have no direct relationship with Bonaire, and so the island shape is arbitrary. But it has to be right, of course. I would never add symbols representing waves on a stamp featuring a bird that only lives on land.’
Images
One major difference between Dutch and Caribbean nature is the availability of imagery. ‘My starting point was only to use photos that were taken on Bonaire itself,’ says Janse. ‘I quickly abandoned that idea. There were simply too few photos and I wanted to make decisions that would benefit the composition. Lots birds had been photographed in other places, so I used those photos too. Some photos have been edited in order to blur the background. I avoided using an image of a bird with a tree or bush visible in the background that is not found on Bonaire. This also added calmness and depth to the design.’
Transparency
The images of the birds on the front are repeated on the back of the stamps, coloured in monochrome against a blank background. Janse: ‘I used that space to repeat the names of birds, photographers and image banks. The colours on the back correspond with the colours of the transparent images on the front. That's another innovative concept that’s been incorporated into this year's design. The transparent images always used to be white, and here colours have been used as they are so strongly intertwined with Caribbean nature. For example, a red ibis is depicted in red in the top left-hand corner, and below it are a green ceroid cactus and a yellow mangrove warbler.’
Relationships between images
For the stamp sheet’s composition, Janse has sought to create an ideal relationship between all of the images in terms of colour, position, direction, close-up shots and images from afar. ‘That’s why some photos are taken from close up and others are zoomed out. One photo features a ruby-topaz hummingbird in flight, and two yellow-shouldered amazons were added for the sake of variety. Colour was key in all decisions; blue was used at the top of the stamp sheet, for example, where you expect the sky to be. First of all, I position the images bare, and then I start moving them around, enlarging them, shrinking them, and so on. This creates relationships between the images – sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident. You can see branches running from one stamp to another, for example. The lapwing's body seems to be connected to the flamingo's head. The circles also seem to follow the curved shapes of the birds where possible.’
A bird enthusiast
Although Janse has never been to Bonaire, he is a bird enthusiast and so he is familiar with many of the species featured on the stamps. ‘As a child, I found the magnificent frigatebird extremely interesting. It’s huge bird that can stay in the air for months without landing. It stands pontifically on the stamp in the left-hand corner, with its red breast puffed out and its large beak. The crested caracara is just as interesting. This falcon species is an incredibly opportunistic beast; it eats just about anything, and preferably steals food from other animals. It’s a real predator. And, of course, the hummingbird had to fly onto the stamp. It's a clever photo that’s been taken with a very good camera. Its stance really catches your eye – it’s as if it is turning a corner mid-air.’
About the designer
Frank Janse (Vlissingen, 1967) graduated as a graphic designer from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam in 2001. Janse is a specialist in corporate identity, branding, infographics and communication campaigns. Until 2019, he worked for various advertising and design agencies, including Room for IDs, and he also worked for himself as Frank Grafisch Ontwerp in Gouda. In 2019, together with Leene Communicatie, he founded the new company Leene Visuele Communicatie, which designs communication tools focusing on content and information design. Leene Visual Communication works for clients including housing corporation Rochdale, PostNL, Randstad Group Netherlands, the Dutch central government, Vattenfall and the organisation for health research and care innovation ZonMw. Since late 2022, Frank has been the Design Director and Co-owner of VormVijf in The Hague. VormVijf works for governments, companies and organisations with the (mostly organised) citizen as its most important and largest target group. The agency connects strategy, design and content with the ambition to innovate, surprise and create impact. On the instructions of PostNL, Frank Janse has previously designed various luxury storage systems and personal stamps, including the 2017 themed collection on bird species of the Netherlands. He also produced the designs for the Experience nature series from 2018 to 2023. In 2023, he designed the personal stamps Holland America Line’s 150th anniversary, Girl with a Pearl Earring and Inauguration of Queen Juliana, containing 24 -carat gold.
