The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2023
Royal Mail marks Windrush 75 with eight stamps by many Black British artists
For the Windrush generation's 75th anniversary, Royal Mail's eight-stamp set was commissioned from many Black British image makers, not one artist
Royal Mail
What it had to solve
2023 marked the 75th anniversary of the MV Empire Windrush's arrival in the UK on 22 June 1948. Royal Mail asked designers to create a set of eight stamps celebrating the influence and contributions of the Windrush generation, originally briefed as a set of images by one artist.
How it works
In 2023 Britain marked 75 years since the MV Empire Windrush arrived from the Caribbean on 22 June 1948, carrying the first large post-war generation of Caribbean migrants. Royal Mail asked a design team to create a set of eight stamps celebrating the influence and contributions of that Windrush generation to the UK — and the original brief imagined the set as images by a single artist.
The creative decision was to break that brief. The variety of influences introduced by such a vibrant generation would be better served by several voices, so the designers pushed the project toward commissioning a number of different Black British image makers. Each stamp became an original artwork, and giving Black British artists a national platform to showcase their talents became part of the project's purpose, not an afterthought.
The result was a commemorative set whose form mirrored its subject: eight stamps, several artists, many styles — a collective portrait rather than one person's view of a generation. D&AD archived the project under Illustration; the archive page records no sales figures, leaving the commission decision as the case.
Why it lands
- A generation's influence is plural, so a single artist's vision would have narrowed the story the stamps could tell.
- Commissioning Black British image makers made the commemoration also a career platform, extending the stamps' effect beyond the images themselves.
- Several hands gave the eight stamps distinct readings of the same history, so the set works as a series rather than a repeat of one style.
- Royal Mail's everyday distribution turned a cultural statement into an object seen nationwide.
What it did
The design decision made the artefact express the generation's plurality: eight original artworks by Black British artists carried the commemoration on stamps that reach every letterbox in the country. The project is archived by D&AD under Illustration.
What you can take
When a commission is about a whole community's contribution, one voice cannot carry it: split the work among many makers so the object itself mirrors the plurality it honours.
Since then
The eight stamps were issued by Royal Mail in June 2023, with UK media covering the Black British artists behind the designs. The set remained in the D&AD archive under Illustration, where the page records no sales or circulation figures.
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