[press release]
ATA to Offer Two Courses
The American Topical Association is offering two courses via Zoom during the month of May.
Wondering How to Mount and Display Your Collection? Make Your Own Album Pages! is three sessions at 6:00 p.m. Eastern on May 4, 6 and 11. It will show how to design pages on a computer and print them or take them to be printed.
The course will be taught by Martin Kent Miller, owner of The Philatelic Press, a design and marketing firm geared to the needs of philatelists. Martin 
has worked as a graphic designer for 30 years and enjoys making album pages. Also teaching will be Jeff Hayward, ATA first vice president, who works in the computer field and assists ATA with its technology. He is an avid collector who designs album pages for his many topics.
Cost is $25 for ATA members, $40 for non-members. Registration is open on the ATA website at www.americantopical.org.
Thematic Exhibiting: Steps to Success is a five-part course is designed to give students practical information to use in planning and developing a thematic exhibit. The five-part course will be offered on May 15 (4 p.m. Eastern), May 18 and 20 (6 p.m. Eastern) and May 22 and 29 (4 p.m. Eastern). Cost is $35 for members, $50 for non-members.
ATA president Dawn Hamman will present the first session, an overview of the decisions students need to make in planning; writing the thematic story; and acquiring and describing material. There will be a discussion of resources to use along the way. She is a thematic exhibitor, writer and editor.
The second session, taught by Martin Kent Miller, will cover layout and design, including choosing paper, page design basics, matting, typefaces and size. The owner of The Philatelic Press, a marketing and design firm geared to the needs of philatelists, Miller edits numerous publications, including First Days and The United States Specialist. He designs many publications for ATA, and edited the 2020 book, Topical Adventures – A Guide to Topical and Thematic Stamp Collecting.
The third session will be a case study, in which prominent thematic exhibitor Phillip Stager will go through the steps he took in developing his award-winning exhibit, The Wonderful World of Bamboo. Stager has been exhibitjng since high school and has won many top awards for his thematic exhibits. He is a retired philatelic judge who served as chief judge for the National Topical Stamp Show several times. He wrote the chapter on thematic exhibiting for Topical Adventures – A Guide to Topical and Thematic Stamp Collecting.
Jean Wang will lead the class on May 22: How to Choose a Wide Variety of Philatelic Items for Your Exhibit. She is the grand award winning exhibitor for Blood: A Modern Medicine, CANPEX, 2019, and one of the foremost thematic exhibitors working today. She will describe how she selected a wide range of philatelic items to tell the thematic story.
The final session of the course will be a wrap-up for students to report on their progress and ask questions.
