Hours of labor and gallons of paint are used in the creation of the perfect rock poster. Featuring a purple grotesque image of a bird-like monster, a flyer duct taped to a pole in front of the Canopy Club entrance advertises Mordechai in the Mirror’s upcoming show this Saturday at The Red Herring. Walls of abandoned construction sites have become canvases for bands to promote their work for decades. Mordechai in the Mirror’s most recent flyer can be seen taped over dozens of other posters advertising previous shows from bands like Santa and Common Flow.
Forming the right imagery to represent a band requires a mutual understanding between designers, band members, and promoters. It is a symbiotic relationship based on trust and respect. Bands trust artists to conceptualize their work, while artists use their music as inspiration for their imagery. Most poster artists work under loose guidelines, but rarely under the strict supervision of band members and promoters.
“By an initial band putting up [your] poster, they’re advertising your work as long as you put your name on it,” said graphic design and painting student Matthew Harlan. “Bands want to get themselves out there, too,” said Harlan, explaining the mutually beneficial relationship between poster designers and music artists.
Harlan has been creating silk screen posters for nearly a year. His work is known for its childlike and playful images. His latest poster for a local band named Santa embodies the theme of good versus evil through a dichotomy between a child playing a board game and an adult holding a gun while robbing someone. The two bodies are mirror images of each other. “[Like silk screening] things overlap and intersect,” said Harlan. “This good and this evil intersect with each other, [and] I could use silk screening printing to relay that.”
The poster’s theme is a reference to a conflict between Santa and a venue director. “They weren’t initially going to play the show, but they got guilted into it,” said Harlan. Harlan explains that many venue directors have power over a band’s recognition in a community. Pulling out of the show could have reflected poorly on Santa’s image, which forced them to stay. Harlan used this conflict for the imagery of the band’s poster.
“You can get away with things being a little bit campy and grotesque because there’s something playful about the medium,” said Harlan. Throughout his short, but successful silk screening career, Harlan has interpreted bands’ works successfully. “It’s a trusting relationship. They like what I do,” said Harlan.
John Vogl 25, is a graphic designer who has turned the rock poster tradition into a one-man business from his basement in St. Louis. His studio, the Bungaloo, is the source of posters for bands like Celebration Day and Elsinore.
Combining the arts of silk screen printing, illustration and lithography, Vogl creates limited edition posters displaying intricate and colorful imagery like abstracted landscapes and cartoon animals.
“I think bands and promoters…tend to enjoy an outside interpretation of what it is that they do,” said Vogl. His interpretation process ranges from listening to his clients’ CDs to doing something as random as cleaning the shower. “I don’t want to pigeonhole myself with a process,” he said. “When the right idea comes along, I’ll know it’s there.”
Like Harlan, Vogl’s combines the arts of drawing, graphic design, and print making. “[Designing posters] is an interesting opportunity to conceptualize a body of work from a band,” said Vogl. Creating imagery to promote a band is a give-and-take relationship that Vogl describes as a necessary exchange. Although he admits that he is nervous “about ninety-nine percent of the time,” he does not let this discourage him from creating his own imagery.
“The whole show poster scene is a very small niche,” said Vogl. “Being such a niche there’s not a whole lot of money involved and the turnaround is quick.” To operate on a quick timeline and small budget, Vogl thinks it is much more efficient and effective to work on the imagery alone. “I’m only a one-man shop,” he said.
While Vogl has turned his appreciation for rock flyers into a business, Harlan struggles to balance his print making with his schoolwork. “I have things due for my painting class and things due for graphic design and then I have this passion I want to do on the weekends,” said Harlan.
Poster making is a time-consuming process. The interpretation process has lasted Vogl days. After an idea is finalized, it can take up to 8 hours mapping out the design, and an entire day to complete the printing process.
“It’s really exciting. You’re standing up and you’re actually doing this work and you’re ending up with a product,” said Harlan. ““I really enjoy it. It’s very real.”
Harkening back to the traditions of print making, poster artists only create limited editions of their work. “The appeal is that there are only so many out there – the idea of putting a cap allows you to define the value of the poster,” said Vogl.
Mordechai in the Mirror’s band member, David Samuel is the graphic designer responsible for the bizarre bird monsters found on their flyers. Unlike Vogl and Harlan, Samuel spends little time on conceptualizing his band’s imagery. He admits that most of the imagery on his flyers are quick doodles which he has morphed into intricate posters.
Although they start as random doodles, “when you put color to them, they start to mean something,” said Samuel. Most of his images’ coloring is done on Photoshop using low opacity brushes and custom colors. The technique creates a rich watercolor effect.
The images are based on stream of consciousness doodling. “A big philosophy of mine is that I like to do it in pen because…you have to work with your mistakes,” said Samuel. He relates this idea to the philosophy of the band’s music.
“The music is based on loops, and the loops are made on the fly,” he said. “If there’s a weird off timing or weird mistake, it’s locked in the loop forever.”
The art of rock posters has created a tight link between the art and music world. “Shows should be an artistic experience,” said Samuel. “Both visually and auditory-ly.”
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