Stamp review: CMYK Color Printing (2020-02-04)

CMYK Color Printing | צבעי היסוד בדפוס

The "CMYK Color Printing / Chlorurus" stamp was issued by Israel Post on 4 February 2020. Face valued at ₪16, the stamp features a multicolored chlorurus parrotfish swimming in a sea among corals and numerous smaller fish. As indicated in the stamp's release notes, "CMYK" is an acronym for cyan (blue), magenta (pink), yellow, and key (black) -- the four basic colors of printing. The upper area of the stamp depicts the CMYK color palette, and the tab below the stamp proper deconstructs a segment of the coral reef into its constituent colors. The stamp was designed by Tuvia Kurtz and Miri Nistor, both veteran designers with Israel Post: Kurtz has been designing Israeli stamps since 1998, and Nistor since 2001.

It would be misleading to review the stamp shown above in isolation from the minisheet of which it is a part. Technically a 4×1 minisheet, since the top three rows consist of perforated labels and not actual stamps, the minisheet illustrates the CMYK color printing process in detail, and it is only in viewing the minisheet that the ingenuity of the "CMYK" design concept can be fully appreciated. Each of the four labels in the top row features the image of the fish and corals as it would appear printed with only one of the CMYK colors applied. Because the first layer of CMYK printing is key (black), the second row features four identical labels of the key image with a cyan overlay. Then the third row adds the magenta (pink) layer, and finally the fourth row completes the process with the addition of yellow. The margins of the minisheet indicate which colors have been applied at which stage, albeit without the regularity of a proper mathematical table.

"CMYK Color Printing" minisheet

The "CMYK" first day cover also merits attention. It depicts a sheet of paper as it makes its way from from one CMYK printing roller to the next, each roller's color superseding that of the roller preceding it. The sheet thus changes color from key to cyan to magenta to yellow. Meanwhile, a jumping fish, which starts out colored key, goes through a similar process, but its journey is subtractive as in the minisheet: key, then key-cyan, then key-cyan-magenta, and finally key-cyan-magenta-yellow.

"CMYK Color Printing" first day cover

Lastly, the "CMYK" postmark references Eilat as the location of the post office where the first day of issue cancellation station was operated by Israel Post's philatelic service. Eilat is Israel's southernmost city and home to three protected coral reef areas, the Eilat Coral Beach Nature Reserve being the largest. The postmark design is explained in the stamp notes: "One of the key printing symbols, that looks like a colored circle split into four, is featured in the special cancellation for the CMYK Color Printing stamps."

"CMYK Color Printing" postmark

Bottom line: 5/5 -- Strong buy. If all "CMYK" had to offer were an image of vividly colored fish and coral formations, it may as well have been marketed to toy stores as a sticker for kids. In reality, the enlistment of a colorful underwater scene to illustrate a process that is commonly used in the printing of stamps is just the kind of conceptual originality that earns stamps of this nature high marks. Even as someone who has no interest in fish as a philatelic theme, "CMYK Color Printing" is a stamp whose allure is impossible to resist.

Elhanan Shapira of the philatelic service presenting the "CMYK" stamp in Tel Aviv, December 2019