Commemorative stamp designed locally

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This article was published 09/03/2016 (3724 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg firm Tétro Design created and designed the new stamp released Tuesday by Canada Post in honour of the 100th anniversary of women first winning the right vote in Canada.

The stamp was released on International Women’s Day after being designed in Winnipeg where the group of women battled for the right to vote, becoming the first in Canada to do so. Indigenous women had to wait until 1960.

Andrea Tétrault, one of Tétro Design’s partners, said it was “a tremendous honour” for her and her co-workers to be commissioned by Canada Post, have their concept chosen and then have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveil the stamp they designed.

“In this day of disposable digital media, to do something that endures and is historic like a stamp, that kind of an artifact that becomes part of Canadian history, is really exceptional,” Tétrault said.

“For something like this that has that kind of history, it feels like we’re reaching 100 years back and really celebrating that. It’s encapsulating quite a broad span of Canadian history and time.

“As a woman, it’s significant to think that there was a time when we didn’t have an equal voice, and in fact as recent as 1960 which was when all women had the vote regardless of their indigenous status, it is mind-boggling for me. As a woman who’s grown up with equal rights to men, I’m a business owner, I’m a mom, I can do it all, and that wasn’t always the case so it’s particularly poignant for me. We had a very big team, a group of designers of men and women, of all races and ages, and I’m sure it was as significant to them as it was to me.”

Tétrault said the process to submit designs to Canada Post and for Tétro Design’s artistic creation to be chosen began in January 2015. Her firm found out last June its design had been selected but had to keep that information confidential until Tuesday’s official announcement.

The black-and-gold stamp features the word ‘vote’ in which the ‘o’ and the ‘t’ join together to form the Venus symbol for women. Fortunately, the word vote is the same in English and French, allowing the design to meet the requirement for both official languages to be represented without having to add more text to the stamp’s small area.

“It’s a very simple and symbolic stamp and it’s accessible and relevant to everybody, past and present, regardless of colour, ethnicity… ”