Steve Buchanan was contracted by the Postal Service to create a concept for stamps. Because of the wide selection of insects and spiders to choose from, he did approximately 30 sketches for review. When the committee reviewed the sketches, they were so enthusiastic they approved a full pane of 20 designs. Working closely with Buchanan, Carl Herrman developed the entire pane of stamps, and arranged the insects so that the creatures appeared to be crawling on top of the paper. This was achieved by using shadows and arranging the creatures so they overlapped the adjoining stamps.