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!
3 Responses to “Dirty Honey”
You made these?! Wow, Austin is full of such talented people! I love these… do you have posters for sale?
Is this ITA Darling who left a comment on the Marc Jacobs giveaway on my blog?
If so please email me at noangelATgmailDOTcom THANK YOU!!! YOU’VE WON THE CONTEST!
No- I dont’ sell them- but I do take them down out of the club after the shows; so if you have a favorite- let me know and I can send one over! I love the poster art scene in Austin! One of B’s DJ buddies (and our good friend!) was just featured in Austin Magazine! His work is all screen-printed and divine- I am too lazy to screen print anymore! sadly all digital, but thanks for the complements.