Top judge to pick heat winners from the South West in Royal Mail's Christmas Stamp Competition

Royal Mail has announced that Martin Clark, Artistic Director of Tate St Ives, will be a regional judge of its Christmas Stamp Design competition.

Martin will be giving his expert opinion on a shortlist of 10 entries received from children aged 4-11-years-old from across the South West region. The designs have already been shortlisted from 240,000 entries that have been sent in from children across the UK.

Martin will be joined by Tom Trevor, Director of Bristol’s Arnolfini Centre, who together will choose two winners from the region. They will go through to the final stage of the competition and can win the chance of having their designs becoming this year’s First or Second Class Christmas stamp.

The eight runners up will each receive £100 vouchers and their schools will receive £100.

Martin said: “I’m delighted to have been asked to help judge the entries from the South West region. It’s going to be a tough job as the standard of the competition is really high.

“It’s a fantastic competition with a money can’t buy prize – the opportunity to design this year’s First or Second Class Christmas stamp. I’m so proud to play such an important role in helping to choose the two winners from the South West and hopefully we’ll have one of the overall winning designs from our area.”

Only twice before in Royal Mail’s history – 1966 and 1981 - has the official Christmas stamp been designed by schoolchildren.

As with all Special Stamps issued by Royal Mail, both winning designs will have to be approved by The Queen.

The two winners will follow in the footsteps of highly acclaimed children’s’ designers and illustrators who have designed Christmas Stamps in the past, such as Axel Scheffler (2012), Nick Park (2010), Quentin Blake (1993) and Michael Foreman (1987).

Photo: © Mike Newman / Ocean-Image.com