Boise Weekly Cover Auction Poster

My alma matter needed a poster for the upcoming event. The Boise Weekly Cover Auction is in it's 10th year and I couldn't be prouder. When Sally Freeman and I bought BW in 2001 we changed the policy on how we treated our covers. No longer would the cover be the showcase of the stories within, or about news, or any of the more traditional covers. We decided to reach out to the arts community and offer local artists a way to show their art to more than 35,000 Boiseans each and every week. We would pay them, give them a gift certificate to Boise Blue art supply, and also ask them to donate their original work to an annual cover auction, the proceeds of which would go to a local arts charity. 

Our publishing peers across the country either hailed or hated this idea. For an arts, news and culture newspaper, it was a radical shift  from traditional newspaper cover treatments. They didn't think it would work for any length of time. I'm happy to see the idea reach it's tenth year and while the money is now dedicated to a local arts grant program, over $100,000 has been directed back at the arts community over the 10 years. But I digress. This is about the poster.

So they needed a poster and I have just opened up a letterpress poster shop. It seemed like a good fit. But they needed it yesterday and letterpress, while hailing from yesterday is not a quick process. I set to work regardless.

I blocked out the type on the press and pulled a print of text. Then I flipped all the letters and pulled another print to give a boxed effect behind the letters. Then I photographed them both and opened Photoshop. WHAT?!!?? YOU USED PHOTOSHOP???!!!??? Damn right I did. I sketched out the color plan using the computer, it's faster that way. I divided the images up into layers, yellow, magenta and cyan, then I played with color layering. Once I got something I liked (see picture above) I planned out the color runs on the press- yellow, magenta and cyan. 

Hand inking the type, running the posters through and experimenting with different up and down letters I came up with 20 monoprints. Some were on chipboard, some were on butcher paper, some were on off prints from another poster project (my wood type specimen poster). 

I rushed them down to the BW office, ink still wet and they chose 10. The picked their favorite to scan and use in their own poster and advertisements for the cover auction and I signed and numbered the rest to be sold off at the auction on November 2. 

Go and see the various posters. Come by the shop and see the ones they didn't pick... some are quite wild, especially when I pulled a print after spraying the type with a cleaning solvent. I didn't know it would marble like that.  

Happy anniversary Boise Weekly on the cover auction. You are my baby and I'm glad to see you've reached 10 years old. Support local art, buy some.

-Bingo