The Postal service has announced that the shape of its postage stamps is to change shape for the first time in over a hundred years on the first of April this year.
The change in the design is to enable blind customers to be able to attach their stamps to envelopes without inadvertently affixing them upside down. This is a problem that the Postal service has been trying to address for some years and in the past has involved intensive training of guide/seeing dogs in the field of postage stamp affixiation (correct linear recognition of). All to no avail.
The new shaped stamp has been developed over a period of five years sustained research at an estimated cost of £800,000.
A spokesman said today that: "At first we just thought about snipping off a piece from the top right hand corner of our traditional range of stamps, but we calculated that the excess sticky paper would amount to nearly a skip full every four years and so the cost of disposing of all of those little bits made it prohibitive"
There were also similar reasons given for rejecting circular or oval shaped stamps produced in sheet form but the designers at the Postal Service now believe that they have come up with the optimum design.
A sneak preview of the new stamp in the shape of an equilateral triangle can be seen on the Postal Service's website from today.
