Video: ArtCrank 2010 Poster Show -- Minneapolis

ARTCRANK 2010 Poster Show Minneapolis 

ARTCRANK is an art show featuring prints and posters dedicated to bikes, bicycle culture and the biking community.  A self-proclaimed "Art Show for Bike People," basically it's where paint meets pedal.   Above is some footage covering the show a couple months ago in Minneapolis.

VIDEO: 20+ Years of French Paper --

If you've bought a poster lately, you might have noticed that it might have been printed on French Paper.  Well, today Google taught me that this paper is made in Niles, Missouri, in a green hydroelectric mill.

Because the guys at French Paper Co. have said it so well:

"French is our family name and we're one of America's oldest (6 generations) and best paper mills. We manufacture all our paper with 100% hydroelectric energy, and have done so since 1922.

We've distilled over 20 years of remarkable promotions into a 3 1/2 minute movie.

Charles S. Anderson Design Company, est.1989, and (America's favorite small family-owned paper mill) French Paper Company, est. 1871, have worked together to create one of the best-known paper brands in the country."



Check out their blog as well, The French Sample Room, which is chock full of beautiful prints.

And, a video showing the hydroelectric-powered machinery inside the French Mill.

Typeface - a documentary film about old wooden type making and printing

Typeface film poster designed by Nick Sherman.  

Check out our post on FlyerGoodness for more of Nick's work.

Available at the Typeface store.

Typeface prints designed by Dennis Ichiyama, a professor at Purdue University who appears in the documentary.  Prints available at the Typeface store.

Typeface print designed by Ashley Pigford. 

Available for $20 at the Typeface store.

Typeface print designed by Jason Early & Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff

Available at the Typeface store.

Typeface print designed by Stacey Stern.

Available for $25 at the Typeface store.

 Poster from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and a photo of the press below.

Here is a really nice letterpress poster designed for the UK screening, designed by art student Alex Fowkes aka Pone.  Check out his website or his Flickr for much more.

Alex even made custom invitations and tickets which are downright awesome.

Here is a short time-lapse video of Alex's process in making the poster

One of the movies I actually look forward to the DVD release of, Typeface is a documentary about the tradition and art of wooden type design and printing, focusing on the historic Hamilton Wood Type Museum.  Here's what the documentary website has to say about it:

Here are some bits from the Typeface synopsis:
"Typeface focuses on a rural Midwestern museum and print shop where international artists meet retired craftsmen and together navigate the convergence of modern design and traditional technique."

"Typeface, Kartemquin’s latest documentary in progress, will bring this fascinating junction of historical and contemporary, as well as rural and urban America together for enjoyment and contemplation. This film will be of interest to art and graphic design enthusiasts, to teachers as an educational resource, and to anyone looking for a film about perseverance and preservation in the heart of America."

Here's the trailer for the film, due out on DVD this Spring. You can also check the website for screenings.

"The Hamilton Wood Type Museum in rural Two Rivers, Wisconsin, a struggling industrial town on Lake Michigan about an 90 minutes north of Milwaukee, houses over 1.5 million wood letterforms. Currently, these letters are not behind glass or partitions, but are instead organized and available for the layperson or artist to consider, hold, and if they attend a workshop, use for printing. The Museum occupies a portion of the original Hamilton Company type factory building, residing there free of charge to heighten Two Rivers’ cultural status."

Here's a video clip from the film, showing what it's like inside the Hamilton Wood Type Museum:

For another informative video about the museum, check out this youtube video by a local public tv station.

Apparently the place is chock full of over a million pieces of wooden type.
Here are some photos inside the museum, from the Typeface photo gallery:
Get ready for some typographic goodness:

Photo from the Typeface photo gallery.

Photo from the Typeface photo gallery.

Photo from the Typeface photo gallery.

Photo from the Typeface photo gallery.

Photo from the Typeface photo gallery.

Photo from the Typeface photo gallery.

Photo from the Typeface photo gallery.

 

 

Photo from the Typeface photo gallery.

 

Photo from the Typeface photo gallery.

Check it out!  I'll have to drive over an hour to see ascreening towards the end of the month (note:  they're currently not scheduled for Los Angeles).

LINKS:

- Official website of the Typeface documentary
- List and updates of Screenings

Obey Giant

Some newer and older posters from Obey.
Some say Shepard is losing his touch with his newer work after his image really got bigger after the establishment of obey and his print work for the Obama campaign.

Either way, he's still laying it down on the government with his art direction that represents a voice much larger than his own, offering inspiration and affecting others to do work.

>>More on the "Let Fury Have the Hour" Documentary

>>Shepard's most recent poster done in response to the disappointing efforts in health reform.

Hatch Show Print - American Artifact

An amazing letterpress poster by Hatch Show Print, an infamous shop that has been cranking out carved wooden type on paper since the 1950's in Nashville.  You can check out just how old-school their printmaking process is on their clip on the American Artifact website.  If you can, check out the trailer and see if they're screening in your area, because its a pretty cool documentary on the traditional and non-digital craft of making flyers and posters.