I'm looking for feedback on the Community US Stamp Album

Andy Pastuszak ,

Looks really good. Please accept these comments as constructive.

On all -- IMHO, the captions are too close to the catalog numbers. I'd probably double the internal spacing between those.

Thurgood Marshall page -- I recommend additional spacing between the rows. The title of the lower issues is close to the caption of the upper issues, and you still have a lot of vertical space to work with.

American Filmmaking page -- I'd narrow the caption so that it's not as close to the page border. You also have enough vertical space left that you can move the entire block, from the title to the caption, down some from the 2003 Commemoratives title.

Ohio Statehood page -- same comment as Thurgood Marshall page. You could also widen the Pelican Island title so it's 2 lines instead of 3.

Cesar Chavez page -- I'd probably move the First Power Flight down so it's a 2x2 instead of 3&1 layout. And same comment as the Thurgood Marshall page.

Southeastern Lighthouses page -- There's something about the paragraph breaks that is distracting. I can't read the text, so I have no idea if those are necessary for the flow, but if not, you might consider combining a few of those so it isn't as distracting.

Arctic Tundra page -- tough page to layout considering the size of the sheet. I'd consider losing the border entirely so you can maintain the normal order and spacing of the rest of the page elements.

Roy Acuff page -- consider widening the caption on the DC stamp. Looks like it's narrower than the diamond, and the taller, narrow caption blocks aren't as appealing to the eye.

Korean War Veteran's Memorial page -- recommend widening the Korean War title to make it 1 line. Same comment as above re: row spacing. I'd also move the lower blocks a bit to the center to better balance the page.

Reptiles and Amphibians page -- I'd move the whole block down. You have space to work with, and the stamp title is jammed up on the page title.

Madonna and Child page -- I think the 1520 in the first caption can be wrapped up a line to cure the odd justification spacing. Is there a space after the comma "1520,"? Also, I'd probable add some space between the two bottom frames, even though they share a caption.

American Clock page -- Same comment re: row spacing. I'd also widen the title of the Library Lion to make it 1 line.

Sea Coast page -- I'd probably move the top blocks to the center slightly to balance the page better.

American Eagle page -- I'd widen the caption block so that the text isn't as tall, and probably also move it the right as a result. Can you rotate the stamp box about 10 degrees counterclockwise so that the centerline of the strip is on a perfect diagonal from corner to corner?

George Washington page -- I'd widen the GW title to make it 1 line, and same comment re: row spacing.

And as to your subsequent questions, I prefer the justified text and I don't like the tighter spacing.

WRT the captions, if they're from an HTML source, I might be able to do something with that to make your like a little easier. Let me play around with it.

Andy

On your page, the first powered flight and Audrey Hepburn do not appear to be aligned to each other (top, bottom. centered). The upper two stamps are top centered. Do you have a style you would follow for placing objects on a page in relation to each other?

Hmmm, I was also wondering about Lewis & Clark. They were choreographers too?

Looks good Andy, but I'm sure you have picked up the year in Garden Blossom's is wrong. Not sure about the rest, but looks are good with this year.

I love the Cloudscapes sheet & will look at adding that to my collection.

One thing I would do is make the upper corner of the American Eagle strip disappear from the frame lines and above.

Andy Pastuszak ,

Looking really good. As before, a few constructive comments.

For the horizontal strips that are almost page width (American Choreographers, Isamu Noguchi), you might try reducing the caption width slightly so the edges of the text aren't so close to the border. Maybe just enough to make the edges of the text halfway between the stamp box and the border, so you maintain the consistency of the text being wider than the box, but not so much that it crowds the border.

What do the WWII Memorial and Summer Olympics look like if you make the title text 1 line instead of 2? I generally prefer to avoid unbalanced text wrapping, unless to do otherwise would make the title unusually wider than the rest of the block.

For the American Eagle strip, same comment as with the similar 2003 page -- why not rotate the box to make it fit within the border (33° works well). I'd also move the text block to the large, empty space at upper right, like so.



American Toleware -- same Q regarding the 2-line title.