I judge books by their covers (Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union was a fantastic read, and still my favorite cover two years later) and beers by their labels. It may be brewed to perfection with a fervor that can only be mustered by the silent, monastic Trappists, but cluttered, flowery labels will send me back to my High Life every time. But a new Chicago brewery has won a fan in me, and my appreciation for the Half Acre Beer Company is in no small part due to its branding effort. Sure, the beer drains smoothly, but the labels and packaging, evoking my favorite silk-screened rock posters, are even more tasty. I caught up with designer Sasha Barr to see what’s more fun: designing album covers or beer labels.

EL*STOP: What message did the client want to convey?

Sasha Barr: The Lager is Half Acre’s flagship beer, so when we were designing the labels and 6 pack we also developed the logo and overall look for the company. [Owner] Gabriel  was drawn to my screen-print poster work and really wanted everything to convey that similar aesthetic. We developed something rough and handmade, but also bold and strong. From their original offices he had a view of an old water tower and wanted to include that in the Lager label. Through the design process the water tower became the primary icon for Half Acre, we included it in the Over Ale packaging and most subsequent goods and logos.

LS: Is it more fun to design rock posters or brand a beer company?

SB: Oh, man. What a question. Posters are great and all, but sometimes it’s good to branch out into new territory. I’ve been slowly moving away from the posters over the last couple years and have been concentrating my freelance work on illustration and design that’s not related to the music industry and posters (except, of course, for my job in the art department at Sub Pop Records). Working with Half Acre has been amazing since the beginning, and I love having the opportunity to work with the label. They’re a great company and really open to my work. I think we work well together, and that’s really important. I’ve learned a great deal from working with Half Acre, my only complaint is I don’t live in the city where it’s sold! I’d love to walk into a store or bar and see the beer on the shelf.

LS: Got anything for sale on your site that I just can’t live without?

SB: Well, I have plenty of posters which you’re welcome to, but the real gold mine lies in Wonder Thunder, a small business which I share with my girlfriend Meagan. We make goods for the home constructed entirely by hand! Screen-printed fabric sewn into pillows, napkins, bags, and more. I have a good bit of it on my site, but we have a store online where you can really see everything. We also have a bunch of our stuff at Renegade Handmade.

In September of 2007, Chicago-based graphic designer Scott Thomas (a.k.a. SimpleScott) got an email from Michael Slaby, new media director for the Obama campaign. Within 48 hours, he quit his job and signed up for a grueling 13 months as national design director for the Obama campaign, designing materials on the fly in what would come together as possibly the best branded political campaign in history. As the Obama presidential campaign got really rolling in 2008, design observers from across the country were in awe of the uniform presentation of all the campaign visuals. It was no small feat to execute a true 50-state campaign where official visual assets were made available to the organizers and participants at every rally, from signs at a neighborhood cakewalk fundraiser in Crawfordsville, Indiana, to banners at the nomination in Denver. Thomas and his cohorts realized quickly that they couldn’t respond to every email coming in that asked for the “O” logo or a “Change” banner, that they weren’t going to hire someone just to distribute art, and so they placed all the design assets online where anyone could download them. It seems obvious, but for a design or branding campaign, especially from folks who come from a corporate ad design environment, this open source approach represented a big shift away from traditional thinking about visual brand management. But the campaign design directors didn’t just have to manage the replication of official design pieces, they also had to work around, with and through the enormous surge of imagery produced on the laptops, easels, and silkscreens of hundreds of artists who were inspired by candidate Obama. Thomas, who along with Chicago artist Ray Noland (a.k.a. CRO), is curating the upcoming Unofficially Official gallery show of Obama art that explores this intersection of carefully branded campaign design and DIY artistic support, talks here about branding a political campaign and the upcoming art show.

EL*STOP: What was it like managing the visual branding of this campaign in an environment where street artists and others had as much influence as they did?

SimpleScott: Yeah at first we had to come to grips with that because from an ad agency perspective, which I came from, we were used to having a lot of control over the visuals that came from something. But because we had so much grassroots support, we actually kind of created this brand extension called the supporters group and one of the things we wanted to do was involve people in the process as much as possible, and that involved us creating a downloads page that made available all of the assets from the campaign in order to print them out and put them on a t-shirt or put them on signs and push the idea that everyone can be involved in this election. And it really took off. In terms of the art movement that sprung up around the campaign, there was a lot of support that we actually created our own artist for Obama gallery that had a lot of really talented people.

LS: Like Shepard Fairey?

SS: Shepard Fairey originally designed the “Progress” poster as a limited edition silkscreen basically saying ‘Hey world, I support Obama.’ The day I found out about that I was wearing a Shepard Fairey shirt, so I was obviously a long-time fan and had read his manifestos and understood his view on design. So being kind of a fan, we reached out to him and said, ‘Hey would you be interested in doing some stuff for the campaign?’ and he responded with a very enthusiastic yes. So we went through and found some pictures we owned the rights to, which of course has been a problem with his Hope and Progress poster because that was an AP image, so we gave him certain images to use and he picked from those and created a couple illustrations for us, one was a change poster that was the first piece in our artists for Obama gallery and then he later created another one for our vote for change campaign, one that I call serious barrack and one that I call very smiley barrack.

LS: Was the Manifest Hope gallery part of the campaign?

SS: A guy by the name of Yosi Sergant was responsible for Manifest Hope, and he actually started a 527 group so that he could raise money to make posters and things, and he was the lead organizer on that campaign, which for him led to landing a fairly prominent position inside the White House; he is one of the public liaisons of the White House.

LS: Coming from an agency background, was the design process different on a political campaign as opposed to a corporate branding and advertising campaign?

SS: Our typical process would have involved a lot of mood boarding, and thinking and exploration before we start a campaign. Essentially ad agencies have to pitch ideas to corporations and the corporation says thumbs up thumbs down on ideas and typically it goes through a large committee and design by committee typically means that it gets watered down and the end product is kind of lame. One of the things we realized is that we didn’t have the ability to do all of that, so we lost the mood boarding, we lost that entire process and basically we started designing on the fly, designing organically, meaning we had to design an print graphic or an email graphic that day, there was no time for working out the brand and sort of doing brand standards and really thinking through how we were going to roll out this “campaign,” that’s not how we worked… The best quote I heard from the start of the campaign was Michael Slaby in my initial interview with the campaign was, “There isn’t much of a chance for protection in this, we’re working fast, looking down a barrel and building this airplane while we’re in flight. So there’s going to be a time when a wing is broken and you’re just going to have to get out there and patch it up with duct tape, and it might not be pretty, but it will keep us in the air.” And that was a great analogy, we built it in flight and it worked out really well. And by the time we got the to the general election we had pretty clear brand standards. We had worked out typography and color and balance and were pulling images from his historical past and were able to push those down the ladder to our other designers.

LS: What point did you realize you wouldn’t be able to control the imagery associated with the Obama the candidate?

SS: It was pretty early on when we saw this critical mass of artists and designers in the world leaning towards Barrack and, interviewing a lot of these artists [for the Unofficially Official show], they all kept bringing up the fact that this was the first time they wanted to be involved in a campaign. And typically, I think, many artists don’t believe in or agree with either of the candidates and so they go the anti side.

LS: Yeah, I don’t remember seeing a really positive political piece from Shep before…

SS: Yeah it was typically like the “More military, less skools,” poster and that was his mentality and he was very much anti-establishment and then, before you knew it, he was designing the establishment. But I think it was Barack’s message hope, and we were all able to latch onto this positive message that we hadn’t heard in a while that inspired a lot of people to get out there and support barrack. And the thing was that it inspired us too, the more people you have in on the design the broader the reach of the campaign. So we kind of viewed it as making the pool a lot larger and creating in some ways this larger net in which people could rally behind Barack.

One of the interesting things we found in trying to create such a consistent brand in politics is that when all of the sudden state [Democratic parties] or these direct mail companies try to adapt the brand, it doesn’t look like the campaign. Even if the campaign is funding it, people almost discount it if it doesn’t look a certain way. And that happened actually quite a bit where, if something designed something in a field office, people would wonder if it was real or not. I think this is going to effect future elections, it’s this downward spiral almost, once you start making something incredibly consistent, you have to make sure that all the pieces are also consistent.

LS: I’m fascinated with the choice of the Gotham typeface for the campaign assets. Did you choose that typeface? And if so, did you know at the time that it was originally designed for GQ magazine? Was it also a conscious decision to go with an American-designed typeface over a Swiss, French or German one?

SS: Yes. We discussed our type choices quite thoroughly. At the time that we started, the campaign was using Gill Sans, which, though a nice face, didn’t seem fitting. The final straw when we decided to switch everything was while designing a feature graphic that said “Turning the Page in Iraq” the ‘r’ and the ‘q’ in Gill Sans, and it had quill-like terminals that made it feel too typographic… almost like a wedding invitation or something. Not very fitting for the word Iraq. The other major deciding factor was that Gotham was a traditionally American face. It was inspired by the Port Authority Terminal in New York City. It was rooted, firm, stable, had many weights, it was very easy to typeset, all these made our decision quite easy. That night I typeset the words “CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN” which now can only be seen in Gotham it seems. Obviously a Swiss face like Helvetica, which is used by many government organizations would be communicated as the establishment, I always said it would have made Senator Obama appear generic and authoritative.

LS: How did the Unofficially Official show come about?

SS: I have a gallery, in Chicago, called the Family Room, which is part of a design collective I’m a part of called the Post Family, we’re a group of seven designers who support each others’ design habits, which is how we refer to ourselves. We hold each others’ hand through the fact that we want to be doing more letterpress stuff, we want to be doing more silkscreen stuff, we want to get back to our hands, we want to get outside the computer and outside of the box a little bit. And we do a pretty good job of supporting one another and a good job of making sure we have the resources that we need, and so we began a gallery about five months ago. We want to show local artists and help build the community. And we wanted to do an Obama art show, but I started thinking about and realized ‘I don’t even have enough room to show all the stuff that I’ve collected.’ So I started talking to the city of Chicago to see if they’d be interested and they were talking to Ray Noland and it was like, ‘let’s just all work together on this,’ and so Unofficially Official will showcase a lot of the work that produced within the campaign as well as showcasing the groundswell of work that sprang up outside the campaign as well, and I think it’s the first time that has really co-existed. Manifest Hope was all about the grassroots and this is sort of a culmination of the two.

Officially Unofficial - Inspired Art for Obama Exhibition from rebexa on Vimeo.

OFFICIALLY UNOFFICIAL - INSPIRED ART FOR OBAMA

An exhibition of prints, posters, photographs, and videos that emerged in 2008 as icons of the art movement in support of Barack Obama for President.

Curated by Chicago designer Scott Thomas, former Design Director of the Obama Campaign; Chicago artist Ray Noland; and Nathan Mason, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs.

Featuring more than 100 works from independent artists and designers and the Obama ‘08 campaign including Ray Noland’s “GoTellMama!” poster series, Shepard Fairey’s now iconic “Hope” poster, and Sol Sender’s Obama ‘08 logo and branding.

This exhibition is made possible with support from Ken Harman/Obama Art Report and Hal Elliott Wert/Kansas City Art Institute.

Tuesday, March 31
VIP & Press Preview, 6PM – 9PM

Performing Live: The GENT$, Rachel Katzman, Shala, with DJs:Million$Mano, DIZ

Exhibition runs April 1 - May 31, Monday - Saturday, 10AM to 6PM and Sunday, 10AM to 5PM

Officially Unofficial Artists:
Aaron Allen, Aaron Amaro, Aaron Foster, Aaron Meshon, Above, Alex Fine, Alex Fuller, Alex Pardee, Alex Ross, Antar Dayal, BASK, Benjamin Kuhn, Brian Flynn, Burlesque of North America, Caleb Kozlowski, Chad Mize & Phillip Clark, Cody Hudson, Coufal Family, David Choe, Dawoud Bey, Delicious Design League, Eddie, EMEK, Felix Jackson, Gui Borchert, Hand-Cranked, Ian Malard, James O’Brien, James Widener/Snuffhouse, Jonathan Hoefler, Jorge Rodriguez Gerada, Julian Norman, Lance Wyman, Lowell Thompson, Mac, Manick Sorcar, Mario Terero, Max Estes, Mear One, Micheal Genovese, Mickalene Thomas, Mike Jacobs, Morning Breath, Munk One, Patrick Moberg, Rafael Lopez, Ray Noland/CRO, Rebecca Berdel, Rene Garcia, Robbie Conal, Robert Indiana, Ron English, Sam Brown, Sam Flores, Sarah Hoskins, Scot Lefavor, Scott Hansen/ISO50, Shana Berry, Shannon Moore, Shepard Fairey/OBEY, Sol Sender, Sonya Fridman, The Date Farmers, Tom Slaughter, Tony Puryear, Tristan Eaton, Tyler Gibney/HVW8, Wes Winship, Yee-Haw Industries, Zoltron

Official Site: http://www.officially-unofficial.com

[via the inimitable Bad at Sports]

Portal - Still Alive typography from Trickster on Vimeo.

[via Disruption]

Few collaborative endeavors offer both the jaw-dropping innovation and the opportunity to mercilessly taunt your opponent like Coudal Partners’ Layer Tennis. It has to be seen to be truly understood, but this jist is this: two graphic designers square off, online and in real time, on a graphic design where some visual element of the the opening “volley” is taken, improved or at least improvised upon, and sent back for another shot. It’s like battle raps for designerds. Check out today’s all-Brooklyn match
between Armin Vit and Sam Potts, with live commentary by Ben Greenman.

This week (and probably into next week, given some technical difficulties here at EL*STOP) we’ve opened up the blog to let our first-ever guest curator Jesse Hora Dot Com shine a light on some of his favorite Chicago creatives. And first up is Spike Press, the nom du squeegee of illustrator, designer and poster-printing legend John Solimine. Spike Press is, like Jesse Hora Dot Com, a member of the Illustration Corporation, and when asked why he picked Spike as his first featured artist, Mr. Hora (Dot Com, always the Dot Com) wrote “[Spike Press] is easily one of the best illustrators, period.” That’s good enough for us. For some in-depth profiling, check out this great feature on the Chicago art poster scene in the Reader, or this interview with Spike Press.

Jesse Hora Dot Com

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I stumbled upon the work of illustrator/graphic artist/type nerd Jesse Hora through the website of Lifelounge’s “Some Type of Wonderful” type design show and was immediately blown away. Having a healthy reverence for designers who become obsessed with type work, I try to check in on this sub-species of graphic artist every once in a while, and most of the time I find the landscape littered with the serifs of folks who have given themselves over to creating great type designs. Not Jesse Hora. This Chicagoan (by way of Michigan) is a jack of all trades, excelling at illustration, overall design and, or course, great type work. I checked in with Jesse recently to chat about his work and, low and behold, he agreed to come on as EL*STOP’s first guest curator. What does that mean? Well, we’re still figuring that out, but it will mainly involve letting Jesse commandeer the site for the next few days to spotlight Chicago creatives who make this town the vibrant home of a thriving design community. But first, Chicago, I give you, Jesse Hora Dot Com (always with the dot com, how po-mo), after the jump.

EL*STOP: Tell me about yourself briefly. How did you get into design?

Jesse Hora Dot Com: My name is Jesse Hora Dot Com. I am a chubby, white, freckle-faced freelance graphic artist, illustrator/designer/art director, originally from the great mitten state (Michigan, just in case). I got into ‘design’ at a very early age by obsessing over basketball cards and looking at old classic cars. Once I realized that I could make a living out of thinking for a living I was all in.

LS: Was there an ah-ha moment that you realized that things like basketball cards or print ads or other design elements were actually made by someone?

JHDC: Well, my whole family, my whole time growing up I was surrounded by visual things, like my dad paints cars for a living, he does show cars with immaculate paint jobs and basically everyone in my family does something in realm of visual art, so I guess it was just kind of always part of my art.

SC: I think a lot of people see interesting visuals, and have an aptitude to create, but never make the connection that you can make an actual living making those things, whether they be painting cars or creating print advertising, do you think your dad painting cars gave you some inspiration to go out and make a go of it?

JHDC: Maybe subconsciously, but there was an ah-ha moment in college. I did an internship at a design studio called Mode Project and, like most internships, I got no money, not even a livable wage really, but at the end of that they needed me to stay on for an illustration project that fit perfectly with what I had studied and what I was good at, and this creative director took me under his wing and told me ‘hey you’re good at this, you could make some money [as a graphic designer]’ and so I got a real taste of that while I was still in I school. I had a whole year left of school and I made more in two weeks of drawing than I had all summer. So that was really a point where I thought, ‘I can probably do this.’

SC: It seems some folks in the graphic design and commercial art world fall into a niche where they focus on illustration, or design, or type design, they really seem to compartmentalize their work, and you seem to have bucked that trend and to have had some successes in a variety of design niches.

JDHC: I feel it’s really important to not get stuck in that niche and that people get stuck in those niches because it’s easy, because they can keep doing the same thing and make a name for themselves doing this one thing and, not to talk down to anyone, but I think some people get lazy and don’t want to try any new things because they get known for this one style. And that’s really a traditional illustration mindset where people will start to think, ‘I need to develop my own style.’ I just signed with an illustration rep and she was really adamant about people not trying to do too may different things with their style, but I’m one of the only people in the group who have type, design, and illustration in their portfolio and I feel comfortable showing it to anybody even just for illustration projects. Basically, my mindset on it is that I want to try to keep pushing myself to be interested in design, illustration, art, whatever you want to call it, to try something new every day so I don’t get bored with it.

LS: Tell me about the Illustration Corporation and how you got involved with it.

JHDC: Basically, I wasn’t in on it on the ground floor, there was a group of six people who were involved in some way with Ogilvy and Mather who put it together. And there’s a nice range of people, there’s an older, more established guy there down to an intern, and they got together with the idea that, ‘Hey among the designers at Ogilvy, we have some pretty talented illustrators here, we should get together and form this group to represent these illustrators.’ Eric Ellis was the intern there, and I interned with him at Mode, and he showed it to me and it sort of just worked out from there.

LS: If illustration corporation were a basketball team…

JHDC: [Laughs] I like where this is going…

SC: Would you be a low post man muscling in from the baseline or would you be more of a shooting guard?

JHDC: I guess I’m husky enough to play the low post.

SC: You’re not afraid to use those elbows?

JHDC: Not at all, I mean no blood, no foul…umm, what?

SC: Have you seen anything since you moved to Chicago from Michigan, either street art wise or in local print ads or on billboards that has inspired your design sensibilities?

JHDC: There’s on specific project that pops up for me. In there area where I live [Bucktown], there are a lot of Latin American grocery stores and bodegas, and the hand-drawn type on a lot of those places is just insane. I actually took the time to make a typeface based off those hand-drawn signs. In this area especially, being on the edge of some gentrification, there are a lot of Polish, Eastern European, and Latin American places that have these great hand-drawn signs.

SC: Last question. Is there anything better than a rooftop party in June?

JHDC: Absolutely not.

Though the crown surely weighs heavy for Chicago design firm The Royal Order, the regal burden must have been somewhat lifted last week when they launched the well-executed new site for Mozilla Thunderbird 2 messaging. The site is solid, professional work, but what really stands out is the imaginative illustration by Chicago illustrators the Delicious Design League. DDL employs a stenciled look throughout, layering foreground elements on hazy background designs in some great futuristic cityscapes, to great effect and finishing the look off with really nice papery textures and border flourishes that could adorn any self-respecting country’s currency.