Faizan Javed - Pakistan and China have an enduring close and time-tasted friendship that is unique and unprecedented in modern interstate relations. To mark 2015 as the Year of Friendly Exchange between Pakistan and China, a set of five commemorative postage stamps for the denomination of Rs. 10 is being issued by Pakistan Post on 14th, August 2015.
Dr Kanwal Khalid is a PhD in miniature painting. She is teaching at National College of Arts (NCA), Beacon House National University (BNU), and in Design and Fine Arts department in Punjab University (PU) and also the master mind behind these new stamps. She said, “My husband Khalid Nawaz was a stamp collector and he was passionate to design stamps and I used to follow him.”
She continued saying, “We have been sending our designs to many collectors but unfortunately they were selected but never printed. The designer group at upper level never let our designs to be published at Pakistan Post Office Lahore.”
Postage stamp design is the activity of graphics design as applied to postage stamps. Dr. Kanwal said, “They represent the culture of our country. People love to purchase them whenever I visit foreign countries they see our designs and appreciate us but nowadays Pakistan post office has no check and balance on these postage stamps, as pathetic designs are published in the market and there is no action on the people who are designing and printing them.”
Stamps are the culture of our society and people don’t realise the significant of it.
Dr Kanwal further said, “Our design for World Wild Federation (WWF) was approved but never selected. Instead they printed another one, which was wrongly designed and internationally criticised.”
She believed these new designs to be a ground breaking achievement. She reminisced, “Pakistan and China friendship was the theme of our stamps and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif himself selected and approved our designs.”