My boyfriend B is a soul & funk DJ. He buys and sells and plays rare 45 RPM vinyl in mainly in Houston & Austin (and occasionally all over the country and world!) His monthly dance party in Houston is called Dirty Honey. I have been designing his gig posters for the last 15 months. (give or take?!) I kind of love the process and dread it at the same time- he kind of acts like a client and I have to respect his wishes. I don’t always get to choose the direction or imagery, and he is not a designer- which boils my blood when he can’t articulate why he doesn’t like something, he just says “I don’t like it”. We fight a lot during poster week. It’s really the only time we ever fight. Aside from Mr. Opinionated, designing a monthly poster for a soul & funk show is treacherous. The genre has many pitfalls- aside from the normal struggle of staying fresh and creative, I dislike falling into any traps of excessive use of black-sploitation imagery, bikini-ed chicks with afros, or overly vintage-y or predictable pictures.

B and I both search for imagery to scan or for me to work on- I dig through his records (we have an entire room in our 1200 square foot bungalow dedicated to records- it’s a big deal around here, and I’m not complaining; it’s B’s bread and butter!), I look through photo archives, books, and take pictures when I’m out and about with my iPhone.  (the flourish-y box and the tinting of the photo were inspired by a phone pic I took of a 1930′s or 40′s Grand Prize Beer poster at our neighborhood BBQ joint Pizzatolas. Then I recreated it in Illustrator, and made a little “DH” monogram. The giant man hovering over the skyline was an already-combined promotional image for an artist named Bobo Mr. Soul. B scanned it out of one his music history books. The tinting was further inspired by this great post. (If I had gotten My way I would’ve played with opaque pyramids and laser beams shooting out of his eyes and hovering cubes with bauhaus inspired fonts…) But I must keep my Client happy and this solution was much more uh… soulful.

Looking back at the last year or so worth of Dirty Honey posters, I see reoccurring patterns in usage of similar colors, my steadfast devotion to Helvetica and it’s inherent versatility. I see little things I learned in design school and have not abandoned, and things I have taught myself or learned from designer friends and online tutorials. I really like designing for myself- it used to be a lot more intimidating; until I started having more faith in my own abilities. Though I studied graphic design (amongst getting a few other degrees – Agriculture, Anthropology long story! ) I haven’t worked professionally as a designer for a long long time. Dirty Honey is my monthly way of keeping my chops sharp so-to-speak.

So without further ado- the current Dirty Honey poster and a mini archive of the last year or so…

inspiration pic

December 2009

November 2009

October 2009

September 2009

August 2009

July 2009

June 2009

April 2009

May 2009

March 2009

February 2009

January 2009

Christmas Show 2008

November 2009 - did this by hand, just like Mr. Fairey did it.

More DIY’s coming soon!

Going through my RSS feed today, I almost exploded in a fury of self-righteous ridiculousness. A few of my greatest pet peeves are bubbling up again in the blogosphere… I think I need to quit reading lady blogs or folks just need to screw their heads on straight. Here they are- not ranked. I hate them both equally.

1. It’s that time of year!!! Time for Cutesy handmade calendar “round-ups“. Yes calendars are very useful. You can tell which day is which and make plans. But I DON’t want to spend $30 on a hand letterpressed/screenprinted/hand drawn bird silhouetted schlock of paper to hang over my desk. I’m sorry I just don’t. Nor do I want my friends to give me one ( unless they specifically make it, duh.) Calendars are somewhat banal no matter how cute they are. And calender “round-ups” are the boring-est of blog fodder.

Oh yeah, one final thing: Can “pop” of color just die already? What about “spot”, “burst”, “highlight”, or “contrast”? We all see your yellow vase on black table in the all grey room. It’s lovely. Don’t call it a “pop”.

What’s cooler than a piece of new art?  New art that’s vintage.  New art that has a story behind it that touches some part of you.  New art from a friend.  New art that makes you smile.   New art that you know exactly what to do with.

My dear friend V recently retired and moved to Thailand, which is very far from me.  This is a man who made me smile nearly every workday for 5.5 years.  Comforted me when I was about to go postal, taught me so many things about life, Buddhism, and the law.  He moved to Thailand with 2 suitcases and a carry-on, which completely blew my mind.  A lifetime of things were given away or sold over the course of several years as he prepared for this life change.  Could you do it?  I could not.

However, being his friend during this time was a good thing as he saved the very best things for his friends.  He was thoughtful about it, giving books to specific people who would like them, or crystal to someone who collects it.  But my favorite items that I got from V were things that I plucked from his home during his moving sale.  Yes, I was a little scavenger, but the irony is, these were things that he thought no one would want, like the print he had hanging over his kitchen sink for the last 20+ years.

I loved it as soon as I saw it.  Why?  The colors, the Japanese aesthetic.  As with everything I got from V, I asked him the story behind it.  It had been a gift in the early 80′s from his childhood best friend, a Castro-era Cuban emigre, who had grown up in West Texas with V, gone to UT with V, and later lived as a gay man in Houston.  On a visit to V in Dallas in the 80′s, he showed up on the doorstep bearing this print.  V said he was that kind of guy – the guy who would always bring something of indeterminate worth and origin, but something always interesting, always with the best manners.  V’s friend died of AIDS soon after bearing this gift, which hung in the same spot until I greedily grabbed it off the wall.

It needs re-framing and re-matting.  It’s stained from years of nicotine floating through the glass.  I love the way it looks with my little pumpkins, even though the print is probably of oranges or persimmons.  I will always love it, as a reminder of people who float through our lives bringing smiles and small gifts.