NADRA opened its Silver Jubilee Design Competition to students: a 25-year logo, a postal stamp, or a two-sided coin. I decided to go with the stamp, 2 × 2 inches.
The brief asked the design to reflect NADRA’s history and national contribution, and to read clearly. At stamp size that rules out illustration, it had to be one mark carrying both the anniversary and the country.
The centre is one lockup: the Urdu numeral ٢٥ set so its stroke carries the crescent and star of the state emblem, wreath and all. It reads as both the anniversary number and the flag.
“پاکستان” runs across the lower field in nastaliq. The border keeps the machinery of a real stamp, boxed labels, the denomination in both numeral systems, embossed rather than printed, so the sheet stays one green.
Shown the way it would actually arrive, on kraft, franked, with “پاکستان پائندہ باد” hand-set in red across the face and the cancellation ring reading From The Design House of Hadiya Khawar.
Printed and perforated by hand to check the one thing a screen can’t answer: whether the numeral, the emblem and the nastaliq still separate at two inches across.
The same artwork went in twice, colour and black-and-white, as the brief asked, the emboss reads as depth in one and as line weight in the other.
