I designed a poster this week for a new year’s eve concert. Which just happens to feature the awesome band I play in, Samba Já. Don’t forget about the Beat Crunchers. Like, a totally rad dance party on, like, new year’s eve, y’all.
That’s Carmen Miranda in the background. Speaking of which, please view this fabulous Chiquita banana advertisement from the 1940s.
This might be our biggest, bestest gig on our silly tour. The Mile High Club at Busby’s East in Los Angeles. With Dayplayer, who shares our drummer, Matt.
Are YOU going to be there?
Status update: content, quiet, tired, sometimes active, sometimes inactive. Riding my bike is fun in this town–up and down the hills, through the neighborhoods and parks, pissing off the cars. Saturday I was downtown, riding, looking to the sky at the brewing storm. It came, slowly, with a warm breeze and sunshine, then torrential downpour, as I took refuge in the nearest bar I could find. Sunday night I was riding a greenway in the dark, and a coyote crossed my path. Monday night, riding up 51st by my house, the passenger in a car threw the car’s cigarette lighter at me, hitting my shoulder. I almost caught up to them at a stoplight, their lighter in hand. On another note, I like to take ‘er easy. Early to bed, early to rise. Always a good night for a dumpster dive. Another aside, I have been helping out the kids in Food Not Bombs, cooking up delicious food in bulk on Sunday afternoons, serving it downtown to all the kind streetfolk. Last time, I dished up my kale specialty, with a hint of garam masala.
Enough talk, here are some fresh posters. Fresh Free Bananas posters. Each one is different–I pulled all sorts of backgrounds from the scrap piles. There are some real gems in here, but you must see them in person. My photographs are pretty terrible and heavily Photoshop-ed–ain’t no good lighting in the shop. But you get the idea:
And I finished one today–a souvenir poster, for all them tourists wandering through the shop:
And for good measure, here is a photo of manager Jim Sherraden printing on his massive press:
That there is a giant wedding invitation I designed and printed this week. It is 14 X 22 inches, and they are going to mail these out as invitations. People take their weddings very seriously, so I hope they like it. Kurtis and Jen live out of town, so they won’t see the finished poster until the package arrives at their door. They damn well better like it.
Alright, alright. Another one I designed this week. Please read through this thing to understand what it is. Oh, don’t quite understand why there is a drawing of a man in a suit bullfighting? Or why does it look like that man is in the mafia, nicely placing a blanket over a docile cow? Well, that man is Dewey Daane, in a bullfight in Spain. Don’t ask. I love this poster though. (I had to make a plate of all that tiny text in the bottom-left. Just too much type.)
Here is Eli, my fellow intern. I just like this photo.
And did you know that Nashville has its very own full-size replica of the Greek Parthenon? It sits in the middle of Centennial Park–a nice, big park, just outside of downtown.
A somewhat-informative explanation:
In the 1840’s educator Philip Lindsay thought that Nashville should encourage the ideals of Classical Greek education, such as Philosophy and Latin and be known as the Athens of the West. While that nick -name never took hold, decades later Nashville would be given a similar nick-name; Athens of the South, that would became synonymous with Nashville until the title of Music City arrived, with the dawn of the Grand Ole Opry in the 1930’s. If you look in the yellow pages of Nashville, you will still find many companies with the name of Athens within their title.
In 1895 Tennessee searched for a way to commemorate its 100-year anniversary and decided on a centennial exposition to be staged in its capitol of Nashville and then building an exact replica of the Parthenon of ancient Greece and thus the Parthenon, being the pinnacle of the Grand Exposition, was the first building erected.
–about.com
The weather is terrible right now here in Nashville. It’s like I am back in Eugene. Freezing rain, ice, wind. Maybe the same tomorrow. I can’t ride my bike in this weather! The days before this were just lovely–springtime in the South, just as I imagined. Blossoms on the trees, warm and breezy, quaint (rich) neighborhoods alive with schoolchildren and old ladies, and lots of dogs. Then I sat on the porch with rolled up pants and played guitar and smoked a cigarette. I wish I had had my straw hat.
Enough fluff. I finished a new job yesterday. This one was a doozy. The copy contained only four words. The client wanted a tropical beach feeling. He wanted it landscape format. On chipboard. One would think only four words would be nice and easy, but not true. So, this job was for a house in the Bahamas. This house is called Watercolor. He is giving it to the people who bought the house (did he sell it?) Um, but he is getting 100 posters because that is our minimum order. At two colors it is $3.00/poster. Strange, strange. But I prevailed and designed a simple beach-feeling-with-tropical-colors-and-a-palm-tree poster that I think he will be happy with. He is from Ohio. Remember that Best Western bartender from Ohio from a couple weeks back? That state must be a weird place.
Another interesting thing–well, a lot of interesting things happen at Hatch Show Print–happened today. A well-to-do older gentleman walked into the shop looking to inquire about our place of business. He saw our showcase at the airport. He’s in the print business. He researched us on the internet shortly afterward and found out we have a Meihle press. Well, he comes in and tells us he owns the company that has owned Miehle for 80 years. Jim takes him back to the press, where Dan is currently running the thing. So, this thing was built in 1946, it’s a monster, a beaut, and it can crank out a thousand-poster run in no time. Only Dan knows how to operate it, and he’s retired! It goes when he goes. It sounds like an old milk truck rattling down some dusty, bumpy southern road while perhaps little children ride bicycles around it in dizzying circles. Check it out.
Alright, Saturday. A good night last night of rocking out to Hillbilly Casino until last call.
Now to finish the job. Time to print! It shouldn’t take all day to print a two color poster, but, you know, it does.
7) The type is already locked up and ready to go. Put that ink on the rollers, and let ‘er go.
8) Start printing. Deal with all the little problems (some blocks don’t print, some print too hard, add little bits of packing to letters and rules, raise the press bed, too much ink, etc., etc.) Eventually, you come out with a stack that looks like this. The first color.
9) Clean the press, putting your face into smelly mineral spirits and dirty rags.
10) Lock up the next layer in the press. Ink it up, and deal with all those problems again. This one was a pain in the ass. Get frustrated, and turn the CD player up louder. Run tons of proofs, which turn out to become beautiful make-readies. When you get it right, just roll along.
11) Relax and admire your fabulous poster. Printed 100 times. Clean the press. Call the client. They come by the shop to pick up the posters, and they tell you how amazing you are, and you feel accomplished for the long week of printing like mad. Hatch broke a record this week, actually. Sixteen jobs finished in one work week. Yes!
I have been very busy at work this week. I got my first real design jobs–first, for Brooks & Dunn, country superstars, live at Harding Academy, and second, for the local band The Waymores. Check out the finished B&D poster HERE.
The point of this post is to show, roughly, the process of designing and printing a job at Hatch. The simple explanation:
1) Look over the job sheets, call the client, drink coffee, and start sketching.
2) Look for type, searching the hundreds of type cases for just the right letterforms, and put ‘er all together on a board, thinking about color separations if more than one color.
3) Pull a proof on tracing paper
4) Call the client again to tell them a proof is ready. They will come by the shop or you will fax them a copy. And now it is lunch time, so you go get some falafel on 4th Ave. Sit around and eat. Then make catlove to Huey because he gives you doughey eyes (OK, maybe that’s just me).
5) Lock that type into the press bed, lightest color layer first. In this case, it is all images, no text.
6) Think about color. Drink more coffee. Start mixing, and try not to make a mess (which is not easy for me).
Stay tuned for the next episode in which I will show you the results of printing this poster! I will be printing this today, actually, and it is going to be awesome. Catch ya on the flip side.