Launch Music Festival Poster 2013

Concept and Process

For 2013’s Launch Music Festival in Sacramento, California, I approached the promoter’s about a two-fold idea: first I wanted to curate a poster series representing each band in the line-up worked into individual gig posters designed by local Sacramento artists (of I which I myself created one, for Australia’s Van She). Secondly, I wanted to create a screen printed poster for the event itself. A souvenir item to be used as mercy at the festival itself.  Since, the poster was for people who were already at the festival, I felt we could dispense with the usual wall of text and band names and try something a bit more clever. I decided to represent each band on the lineup as a simple pictogram representing their name. At first I was only going to do the main headliners, but as inspiration struck I started adding more and more acts to the list and since you can’t do one from the undercard without doing the others before long I had thrown my hat over the fence and committed to doing them all. Some are simple, some are far more oblique, but they are all get-able and the fun is in figuring out who is who.