Star Trek has a big anniversary coming up. This summer, the franchise that dared to boldly go where no man has gone before turns 50.

The Original Series debuted on NBC on September 8, 1966. Though it ran for just three years—and included just 79 episodes—Star Trek spawned four spin-off TV series, 13 movies and a host of novels and comics. In honor of the show's enduring mark on popular culture, and the franchise's golden anniversary, the United States Postal Service is issuing a series of colorful commemorative postage stamps. The Heads of State, a Philadelphia design studio that produces work with a retro, patriotic slant to it, created it with direction from Antonio Alcalá, a designer at Studio A.

The Heads of State

Given the size and scope of the franchise, you might think the designers had a tough time settling on the perfect iconography to feature on the stamps, but they had to work within two iron-clad parameters. First, the postal service wanted the stamps to commemorate The Original Series. And second, legal restrictions barred the design teams from using anyone’s exact likeness (no Spock or Captain Kirk) or copyrighted material from the spin-offs. That meant drawing from a limited palette. As Woody Harrington, a senior designer at Heads of State, points out: “In deep space," he says, "there’s not too much imagery to work with.”

The final four stamps feature the Vulcan salute, the USS Enterprise, a silhouetted crew member who brings to mind Kirk, and the Starfleet insignia— “symbolic things” easily simplified in 2-inch graphics, Harrington says. Simplified, but nevertheless closely scrutinized. “Anytime you’re dealing with a show with as passionate a following as Star Trek, you need to triple-check the accuracy of every detail," Harrington says. To make sure they got it exactly right, the designers were granted access to CBS's archive of props and merchandise. They even consulted a couple “Treksperts.”

The project spanned one year—so it's a good thing Harrington and the team like the show. “I would say I’m a fan,” Harrington says. That said, "after speaking with a few Star Trek experts, I don’t know if I could say I’m a true Trekkie.”