New design-your-own-postage pushes the envelope

WASHINGTON – Breaking with tradition, the U.S. Postal Service has approved stamps bearing the likeness of a living person: you.

Stamps.com announces a service today that allows people to design their own postage – from kids to cats to corporate logos – on their computers

“It makes mailing a little more exciting,” says Stamps.com Chief Executive Officer Ken McBride.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company received exclusive permission from the Postal Service to test the product, dubbed PhotoStamps.

A sheet of 20 self-adhesive 37-cent PhotoStamps costs $16.99, more than twice the $7.40 cost of a sheet of traditional first-class stamps. (There’s also a $2.99-per-order shipping and handling charge.) The personalized stamps also are available in other denominations, including 23-cent postcard stamps (20 for $13.99) and $3.85 1-pound Priority Mail stamps (20 for $89.99).

The process is simple: Log on to photostamps.com, upload an image, edit the design and place an order. The stamps will arrive in four to seven business days. Next to the design is a bar code and unique serial number to prevent counterfeiting.

PhotoStamps fall under Postal Service regulations for metered mail, so they are exempt from regular-stamp rules such as that no living person can be featured and the deceased must have been dead for at least 10 years (except for historic and presidential stamps).

But there are PhotoStamp limits: no nudity, no controversial or politically partisan images and no copyrighted material. Fans hoping to honor, say, the New York Yankees or Jennifer Lopez won’t get a stamp of approval.

“Of course, if Jennifer Lopez were to order a sheet of herself, that would be the exception,” says McBride.

Humans, not machines, will screen each image to make sure it complies with company guidelines. During a brief trial period last week, the most submitted images were babies, pets and family photos.

Custom stamps are popular in some countries, including Canada.