Search results (tags) for: "posters"

Tech Updates: Poster Sketch Tool Back

2008-01-14T15:15:00Z

*UPDATE!*

The Poster Sketch tool is back, after a short period of downtime.

It has been restored to a previous version, before the searching tools were added. The searching tools were particularly harmful to our database. They will eventually be rewritten and a new version will be released. Thanks for your patience!

Here's the Forum thread.

Poster Contest Opt-Out Week

2007-10-22T12:37:00Z

The time has come to begin printing the winning entries from the poster contest we had last month. The contest itself was a great success. We had over 1000 entries, 60 winning posters, and 180 honorable mentions.

The original plan was to individually contact every seller who had an item included on a winner poster. We wanted to ask them for permission to print their image as part of our promotional event. As it turns out, permission to use images for promotional purposes is given to Etsy when a person uploads. It's outlined in our terms of use. This is actually great news because the time and expense of individually contacting nearly 900 people was looking like it would put the poster production well off into 2008.

We still want to give people a chance to opt-out of being included if they so desire.

Let this article serve as an announcement that any seller with listings appearing in a winning poster can choose not to have their work included. If you do not want your items included in the posters, please contact Jared directly via convo. Substitutions for these items will be made by us.

The opt-out period will last until October 29 at which time the printing of the posters will begin.

The posters will be printed in-house and we will be giving them away at the festivals and fairs we go to. They will be wonderful promotional material because they display the very heart of what Etsy is all about, beautiful hand made goods from artists worldwide. Thank you!

Silk-Screening Show Stoppers at Flatstock 13

2007-09-19T06:48:00Z

I'm barreling my way through the muggy heat and cacophony of the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago when I reach a seemingly serene group of tents in a corner of the park. On closer examination, brightly colored missiles, fluorescent lollipops, staggering zombies, and dangling tentacles greet my eye courtesy of the silk-screened posters created by the many artists that have gathered here to sell their work as part of the 13th Flatstock Poster Convention. A collaboration between the American Poster Institute (API), Gigposters.com and the Pitchfork Music Festival, Flatstock began in 2002 as a way to promote the work of silk-screen artists from across the world and takes place in several different cities (Austin, Seattle, Chicago and Berlin) throughout the year.

"You're bringing together all these different people from all over the country and all over the world who may be in their little podunk town doing silk-screening," said Geoff Peveto, President of API, commenting on the wide spectrum of artists on display. Stemming from the website Gigposters.com, a forum launched in 2001 where silk-screen artists could share posters and tips, Flatstock (a play on 'Woodstock' and the two dimensional quality of the posters) grew into an international festival. "Any time you get a big group of nerds together, you start having conventions," joked Jay Ryan, organizer of the Chicago Flatstock and owner of silk-screen design studio The Bird Machine. "Clayton Hayes started Gigposters and suddenly all these little communities found each other over a very short period of time."

Silk-screening, the stenciling process developed to paint designs and logos on t-shirts and advertisements, has seen a resurgence since the heyday of the 1960's, when screened rock posters touting the Grateful Dead and Santana at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco were part of the pop culture landscape. Close to 6,500 artists now list their silk-screened work on Gigposters.com with more adding their work each day. "It just kind of blew up," said Peveto. "There are poster artists from Israel posting stuff on Gigposters... Through this website we've all started networking."

John Solimine, owner of Spike Press, commented on finally meeting some of the Gigposters artists he communicated with online. "You get to know people's visual style very quickly, but you have no idea what they look like, so you get here and you're like, 'Oh! I know that guy!' and get to meet the person behind the art." Diana Sudyka, a co-collaborator of The Bird Machine offered this explanation of screenprinting’s social roots, "Print-making takes a lot of work. It's very physical and you're often working with other people, so it's collaborative. I think that spirit transfers itself to the community and the sort of support we have for one another." Billy Baumann of the Delicious Design League added, "There's a lot of little tips and tricks and stuff that you just absorb from talking to everybody in this community which is invaluable."

Posters advertising gigs for indie acts like the Decemberists and Animal Collective to rappers like Snoop and Rakim adorn the rows of tents lined with eager festival-goers. Ryan mused on the attention the convention was receiving, "It's an interesting time to be doing [silk-screening] because people are becoming much more aware of it. We've managed to build an audience. The people who come to this thing, for the most part, are an educated audience who understands that these are prints that are handmade in limited runs and that they're different from the Brittany Spears offset poster that you're gonna find at the mall."

The do-it-yourself approach includes not just the art, but also the process. When Mark Brickey of Hero Design Studio in Buffalo, NY bought a silk-screening press for his company, "None of us knew how to screen, so we taught ourselves, figured it out, started doing posters and it's been like, the best thing we ever did. We started really focusing on doing things for ourselves the way we wanted to do them and finding ourselves as artists along the way." Solimine had similar feelings. "I got into web design and that quickly got really sterile and antiseptic, just sitting in front of a computer all day... Doing this was great because you get your hands dirty and you're sweating and it's very visceral and tangible."

For most artists at Flatstock, the worlds of music and art often intersect. Many of the silk-screeners had been in a band or were currently in a band. "Someone says, 'Well the drummer can draw, he can make a poster.' And then the band breaks up but the drummer keeps making posters," said Ryan said over the roar of concert-goers in the distance. Dan Macadam, owner of Crosshair Studios and member of the band Arriver, chimed in with his own experience, "A lot of the people we've done posters for over the years are people who started out as being our friends and now some of them are in known bands."

Speaking with Ryan about the popularity of the posters he said, "You have to understand that some of these posters, to some degree, are sort of special as an object, as advertising ... for bands that are not on the cover of Rolling Stone all the time." For many of the artists, the the lines of accessible pop art and more expensive fine art continue to blur. Jeral Tidwell of Crackhead Press commented, "Just in my short career as a poster artist, posters that were on poles are now on eBay for like 100 bucks. It’s just insane how it works out."

Looking around at the hundreds of different styles and ideas layered on each poster, I wondered where inspiration struck for many of the artists. For Brickey, "The thing I was amazed at in this industry is that so many people who are designers are really, really creative ... and have a great vision for things. On my hunch, 90% of everything you see back here was not art directed. Almost all of it is the designers vision.” Brickey paused and then continued, “I think it's kind of funny that this is what happens when you let talented people do their own thing and don't try to micromanage them."

As dusk began to fall and the music came to a crescendo in the distance, Ryan remarked, "It's been a great thing to be involved in ... I was really lucky to get into this when I did."

FURTHER RESOURCES:
American Poster Institute: www.americanposterinstitute.com
Pitchfork Music Festival: www.pitchforkmusicfestival.com
Geoff Peveto: www.thedecoderring.com
Gigposters.com: www.gigposters.com
Flatstock: http://www.flatstock.com/
The Bird Machine: http://thebirdmachine.com/
Spike Press: http://www.spikepress.com/
Diana Sudyka: http://dianasudyka.com/
Delicious Design League: http://www.deliciousdesignleague.com/
Hero Design Studio: http://www.heroandsound.com/
Crosshair Studios: http://www.crosshairchicago.com/
Jeral Tidwell: http://humantree.com/

Storque Flickr set: http://flickr.com/photos/etsystorque/sets/7215760

The Handmade Tourist: Hatch Show Print

2007-09-05T20:00:00Z

I admit I’m drawn to places that give me the feeling of stepping back in time. When I crossed the threshold of Hatch Show Print I felt that nostalgia, with the creak of the wooden floor and the smell of old paper. I was a bit thrown when the manager barked at me, “How can we help you, Tourist?”

“Oh, I’m just looking.”

I am a tourist seeking out old, handmade things. Hatch Show Print self-describes as “indeed ‘a tonic for the information age.’" But Hatch Show Print is not a museum or quiet place where you are supposed to look and not touch. It’s alive and grinding away with huge letterpresses and sloppy ink. It’s one of America’s oldest letterpress shops and its history is evident in the floor to ceiling wooden cases of type.

“So, what are you doing here, Tourist?”

“Actually I’m here to see if I can take some photos for Etsy’s blog.” Jim Sherraden, the manager, Brad Vetter, the designer, and a couple of the other folks there had heard of Etsy (in fact, two of the women who work at Hatch Show Print are Etsy sellers—BettyTurbo.etsy.com and SnowOwl.etsy.com). And so my status ratcheted up one notch from Tourist to Serendipitous-Web-Personality. I was invited to walk behind the counter though one of those wooden, waist-high swinging doors and treated to an explanation of how to set type and hold it in place with filler pieces called “furniture.” I’m sure they would have done the same for any enthusiastic tourist who appreciated the art of letterpress. They just like to call a spade a spade and acknowledge the fact that handmadeness is, for most people, something to gawk at.

Hatch Show Print is basically one large L-shaped room with the bulkier letterpress machines in the back. Posters, largely two color concert posters for the local Nashville country music scene, line the walls—wherever there aren’t cases of type. For old time country music fans, it’s fun to pick out the greats, such as Elvis here, and take notes on the lesser known. You can purchase prints in the front, and if you’re in need, you can hire them to do small-run jobs.

FURTHER RESOURCES
You can take a “virtual tour” on the Country Music Hall of Fame website

More of my photos on the Storque flickr set

A related note:
I went to see some live local music in Nashville at the Station Inn. The members of the band Radiola not only play like crazy but many of the band members are luthiers too. The band leader and his singer wife called her sister out from the kitchen to sing a duet and the whole place felt like family and friends.

Etsy Poster Contest: The Votes Are In!

2007-08-14T20:00:00Z

To those of you who've been waiting patiently for the results of the Etsy Poster Challenge, they're in, and ready for your perusal! (They're also pretty darn beautiful.)

See the forum thread for more on this!

P.S. Shout out to 315Thomas and her amazing entry, showcased first in the winner's section!

Note: This was originally posted in the Etsy Garden.

Etsy Poster Challenge

2007-07-16T20:00:00Z

We've got a new challenge for all you Treasury curators! Please see this forum thread for details. Good luck!

Note: This was originally posted in the Etsy Garden.