Untitled Lithograph (3)

This portfolio of five black-and-white prints presents the original computer-generated structures that underpinned Robert Deodaat Emile “Ootje” Oxenaar’s groundbreaking Zomerzegels—the first postage stamps in the world to feature designs made with a computer. Issued in 1970 by the Dutch postal and telecommunications service (PTT), the stamps marked a turning point in Oxenaar’s career and in the history of graphic design, demonstrating how computational processes could shape civic visual culture.

Published in an edition of 1,500 following the release of the stamps, the portfolio presents the original plotter drawings as standalone compositions, revealing the computational structures that informed the final stamp designs. Across the prints, lines expand, fold, and radiate in controlled progression; circles transition into squares; planes shift in orientation; and grids generate intricate optical patterns. Motifs that appeared only once on the postage stamps recur here, and their larger scale makes visible the subtle variations, algorithmic logic, and shifting densities that animate each design. The prints foreground the delicate interplay between structure and openness that gives the series its sense of movement and balance.

These prints express Oxenaar’s commitment to design that is clear, functional, and grounded in the conditions of contemporary life. By the mid-1960s his innovative use of color, form, and typography had already brought him recognition within Dutch design circles and membership in the Association of Practitioners of Applied Arts, through which he took on major civic commissions. His collaboration with engineers at the Technical University Eindhoven for Zomerzegels exemplifies this ethos. Together they explored how simple rules, applied programmatically to basic geometric shapes, could generate visual complexity through incremental numerical adjustments in plotted coordinates. The portfolio distills this exploration, translating computational precision into a visual language that merges structure, rhythm, and controlled transformation—an approach that helped define Oxenaar’s lasting contribution to modern design.