Keeling Group

Tomorrow night at the Rialto Theatre in Tucscon AZ, The National will be performing live in concert. If you're at the show, do pick up a poster designed and screenprinted by us good folks at Burlesque of North America. Here is a look behind the design (Mike Davis) and printing (Ben LaFond) processes of this poster. Stay real close to our newsletter for the details on when copies will be available through our online store. Starting to sketch things out. Thinking about big, loud American trucks and long, quiet road trips. A spilled bottle of beer that turns into a winding highway? I'm so clever! Now thinking about geometry, typography, and how to break up the space on the page. Drawing out some basic shapes and choosing some colors. Wait, how do you draw eagles? Have vintage luggage tags, will travel. Illustrator Obsessive Compulsive. The finished design. The dirt across the dotted lines? Following Wezz's suggestion, I printed out an 8.5 x 11"" sheet of paper with only the dotted line grid visible, folded it across all of the lines, then rubbed the edges on dusty surfaces in our office (not hard to find). I scanned in the dusty grid and laid it on top of the light grey layer, then repeated the entire process for the dark grey layer. MAGIC'S GREATEST SECRETS: REVEALED! Films for each color have been printed and set to rest in our TO SHOOT drawer. Ben has his sights set on some greys. The screen for the gold ink waits patiently for its time to shine. Here stands the stackola of paper which will soon become the stackola of National posters. Enough prep work, let's start printing! First layer down, lookin' good. I love goooooooooooold. Bennie making sure the second screen is lined up nice and properly. Two colors down and all's well! Not quite black. I think I asked Ben for ""pencil lead grey."" Ready for lift-off. Yes! Mighty fine work. Trim 'em, stamp 'em, sign & number 'em, pack 'em, ship 'em!