Your clue to the essence — the soul — of Meer Image is the company’s descriptive tag line of “Fine Art Rubber Stamps.” From realistic pond cattails to postoid borders, a stylized maple leaf, a dragonfly with fanciful mermaid wings, and dozens of studies of the human form—that’s what you’ll discover and enjoy as you peruse either the 2007 print catalog or the companion website showcase of designs from this longtime stamp retailer.

Company owner and primary artist Steven Vander Meer is the source of the all-original Meer Image designs. He is a 1985 graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and since founding Meer Image in the early 1990s, he has put his considerable talent and training to good use with hand-drawn, ink-on-paper designs — the basis of all company images — that he finalizes with Adobe Illustrator computer software. A collection of uniformly finely honed designs is the result.

Many Meer designs, such as a raven, a card-sized border of vines and stars, or a set of Venetian blinds, are bold and silhouette-like. As such, they stamp with a high-impact flash of ink pad color and dazzle the eye, if desired, when heat-embossed. The majority of company images, however, are fine-line drawings, and most have a multitude of sheer lines or small dots to suggest shading and nuanced form. This attention to design execution takes Meer Image into rarified realms, where added color from pencils, markers, chalks and watercolors all have their place. With options like these, your cards, garden journals (it’s time to start one!), ATCs and other art are sure to speak well of such imagery.

Oversized designs are part of the Meer experience, and choices abound. A Coffee Goddess image is right for a card to java-drinking friends; several scenery-and-mermaid designs (the detail with “leg” scales is impressive) are twice the size of a bookmark, perfect for all who are readers; a Flying Fish and others from the sea will stand out in a nautical collage or an illustrated travel journal to summer beaches; and card-sized honeycomb patterns — in solid and open varieties — will prod the imagination of those who enjoy gardens. Altogether, nature designs dominate the selection of large-format stamps. (Oh, yes, tiny designs are part of the Meer catalog, too; more than 60 such half-inch images are offered, and most derive from nature.)

Perhaps the broadest category of Meer designs features the human form. These skillfully executed images, often maidens and artist models in pose, depict figures in everyday positions — upright/standing, reclining or sitting. Many reflect mythical sensibilities, like the Mexican Bagel Goddess, which shows a ponytailed nude woman, facing away and kneeling before a bagel the size of a toddler’s inflatable swimming pool! Mermaids, of course, are among these figures, and some nudes are human, but with dragonfly or angel wings.

Particularly appealing are scenery images — several ferns, grasses, leaves and trees, as well as sand or snow dunes — that have fine, sometimes delicate rendering and great compositional balance. They’d look superb stamped in almost any color, however you like to use rubber stamps to reveal your artistic self.

All Meer designs are available as mounted-only rubber stamps, a nod to the company’s commitment to perfection. The blocks are particularly attractive, being of maple — the durable hardwood of choice for the stamp arts — and sanded as smooth as a bar of baby soap. This process includes sanding all edges of each block, to ensure both comfort and practicality when you ink an image and put it into artistic service. Further, blocks are sealed with a natural linseed oil finish, and the index image on the top of each mount is especially true to what you’ll see after stamping the image. Dies are of thick red rubber. That makes them good for stamping on any surface, and notably effective on fabric, handmade paper and other surfaces that are less than even. Cushions likewise are of thick red rubber, another nod to comfortable, sure stamping.

The 48-page print catalog is a handsome publication, priced right at $5.49, plus nominal shipping; it’s available only from the on-demand publisher Lulu, at www.lulu.com. The full Meer Image catalog is online, at www.meerimage.com. Navigation is by image category — a clear, convenient approach to browsing and ordering. You also may download the catalog for free, to view or print offline. Major credit cards and PayPal are accepted, and international orders are welcome. Wholesale accounts are not available. For more, write Meer Image, P.O. Box 12, Arcata, CA 95518. Call (707) 822-4338.

—Art Snyder