Royal Mail London Olympics 2012 Team GB Stamps

After the wonderful success of Team GB at the London Olympics this month, I think it's fitting that they are celebrated as much as possible. Stamps have been around for so long, and there have been many different collections and styles over the years. Every Christmas there are different illustrations, and it is also a good showcase for the people who design them.

Each of the gold medalists from the Olympics has been given their own stamp, with a photograph of them as they were competing or on the podium after receiving their medal. The stamps are a long rectangle shape, to give the most space for the image, alongside the Olympics logo, the words 'Gold Medal Winner' and the winners name and the queens head, which is a standard on all stamps.

Marcus James, the head of design and editorial at the Royal mail said ‘Most stamp projects take around two years to come to fruition,’ says James, ‘with a design period of eight-ten months. With these stamps we had about an hour to design them.’ The stamps had to be finished by the following day after the medal had been won, which is why they had to work quickly.

There are 29 Team GB gold medal stamps available until the end of 2012.