U.S. stamps to sport aloha shirts next year

Aloha shirts will adorn five U.S. postage stamps next year, the U.S. Postal Service revealed over the weekend.

The U.S. Postal Service has been giving a sneak peek at its 2012 stamp program day by day on social media sites and its own website, beyondtheperf.com. On Saturday, it unveiled a series of five stamp designs, each with a multicolored aloha shirt.

The designs are based on photographs from local photographer Ric Noyle. Carl Herrman, the former U.S. Postal Service art director, designed the stamps.

Noyle, 60, of Kaimuki, is often used to photographing more complicated subjects such as resorts, fashion, food and aerial panoramas.

"Having a shirt on a flat background makes me smile," Noyle said. "It warms me up that it got to that."

Having a stamp selected for the year is no small feat, said Duke Gonzales, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Hawaii. About 50,000 recommendations for stamp themes are received each year by the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee, which picks fewer than two dozen.

"Certainly, it’s a rare honor to have an artist’s image or some type of item depicted on a stamp," Gonzales said. "Anytime Hawaii is represented at all, we’re excited."

Two of the shirts in the stamps showcase surfers and their boards; one shows fish, shells and starfish; another shows the bird of paradise flower; and one shows Kilauea volcano.

Noyle photographed several shirts for a book by Dale Hope called "The Spirit of the Islands." Three years ago, he said, someone from the U.S. Postal Service here recommended that he submit the shirts for a stamp design.

"At the time, I must say I had my doubts," Noyle said. "The chances that any of us getting an image on a stamp is pretty far removed."

Noyle didn’t find out he was selected until Friday, a day before the U.S. Postal Service unveiled its decision on its website. The stamps will be sold at 29 cents, the postcard rate, sometime next year.

Gonzales said a schedule of release should be available this fall.

Noyle would not say how much compensation he would get for the stamps, but he said it was "some money."

"But as a photographer I don’t always look for top dollar," Noyle said. "I look for things that give my creative soul nutritional value."