Each year in early September, Portland becomes a frenzied city of festivals and events. PICA’s Time Based Arts Festival happens concurrently with MusicFest Northwest, leaving Portlanders culturally stimulated and sleep-deprived. The city comes to life with performances, gallery shows, dance parties and live music.
This year, a celebration of the print that broadcasts these events will be part of the fun.
A trio of wonderfully Portland things: APAK!, Little Otsu, and Reading Frenzy.
And lucky for all of us (residing here in PDX or passing through), the month of August will combine the three in a triumphant line-up of events.
Tonight, there will be an art show opening at Reading Frenzy featuring APAK and Martine Workman, both long-time collaborators with Little Otsu. And all month long, Reading Frenzy will be hosting a special Pop-Up Shop for Little Otsu. The shop will include all five issues of the ongoing Living Things Series (the fifth, just released, is by Apak!), along with a plethora of wonderful journals, diaries, art prints and cards all published by LO. It will be charming and lovely. You should go.
More about the Living Series after the break!
Great Gatsby Business Card Print
For Print Only (FPO) is a division of Underconsideration that aims to showcase the most compelling work being designed and produced for print. By doing so, they also celebrate the (not-always-so) simple truth that print is alive and kicking. This year they launched their first ever FPO print awards, and we love the chance to see all the beautiful work being honored in the process.
The grand prize went to the Great Gatsby letterpress poster designed by The Heads of State. Inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s who’s who list of the jazz age, Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers decided to produce an imagined catalog of all the business and personal cards for the VIPs that attended Gatsby’s parties. The result is a stunning array of forty-eight beautifully designed and printed calling cards. Each one unique, clever, and evocative of the glamourous “roaring twenties” era.
Item: Poster
Printing: 4-color letterpress
Printing by: Studio on Fire
Dimensions: 18″ x 24″
Paper: 20pt. 140 lb French Poptone Sweet Tooth
Available: $60, Hand signed and sealed from The Heads of State
Naturally. A Perfect Fit.
Quality Garments are the specialty of Portland, Oregon based clothing line Bridge & Burn. Founded in 2009, and inspired by its Pacific Northwest environs, their outwear and shirting designs are simply gorgeous. Well-tailored, and functionally stylish, the line offers men’s and women’s options that work well for work, play, and heading out. Pinball had the pleasure to print the hangtags for Bridge & Burn earlier this year, and I for one, love the pairing of chipboard, nicely-set type and this handsome plaid in their product shot. The back of the tag has space for the specifics about the clothing item, and a helpful directive to “Never Look Back.”
Item: Hangtag
Printing: 1-color offset
Printing by: Pinball Publishing
Dimensions: 2″ x 3″
Paper: 20pt. Chipboard
Available: Online & select stores, with the purchase of a shirt or jacket.
Collaborating is a Portland Mantra, and true to its origins, Bridge & Burn has partnered this year with photographer Randall Garcia on his 52 Weeks Project. Each week he uses his grandfather’s camera (a 1962 Mamiya C3) to capture portraits of really lovely-looking people wearing really lovely Bridge & Burn jackets. The rules are one photographer, one designer, one camera, 52 models, and 52 weeks. The results are beautiful.
A beautiful whale print to benefit WNYC's Radiolab, by Always with Honor.
A team of five designers, illustrators and artists have created a set of limited edition artwork to benefit WNYC’s Radiolab. Curated by Jez Burrows, In Radio Lab We Trust is a set of five Gocco printed pieces available in an edition of 100. Seemingly intangible audio content comes alive and becomes physical in these beautiful two-color prints. All proceeds, after production costs, will benefit Radiolab, the radio show that fosters curiosity and operates at the intersection of science, psychology and the human experience.
Participating artists include Always With Honor, Richard Perez, Jim Datz, Lab Partners and Jessica Hische, each of whom created an image inspired by a specific episode of Radiolab. Each print is a B5 print (roughly 7″x10″) and the set of five comes packaged in a special spot-printed packing paper. They’re available online, but hurry! The edition is limited to 100 pieces.
Joel Speasmaker is Forest, a Brooklyn-based studio with a varied portfolio of design work. His series of small books (aptly titled The Small Book series) recently caught my eye.
The set of simple booklets each approaches a different topic with a different visual approach, but remain united through their use of materials and format. Titles include Spirit Figures, On Symbolism, Abstractions, and Collections, each printed on French Poptone paper that evokes archetypal pastel photocopy paper from the cornerstore copy shop.
Sets one and two of the Small Books series is unfortunately sold out, though we can hope a new title is on its way. In the meantime, drool over these out-of-stock titles and peruse Joel’s stellar design portfolio. See below for more images.
Death Magazine #3: The Sex Issue
You might remember Death Magazine from our interview with editor Forrest Martin late last year. The third issue became available last week, and if the idea of a publication about death made you squeamish, get ready for a double dose. Death Magazine #3 is the Sex Issue, which, in Forrest’s words, “means sexy and/or deathy content from a variety of artists, in literal and figurative ways.”
This issue features cover artwork by Creativity Explored artist John Patrick McKenzie, made specially for the issue. Contributors include Slava Mogutin, Joel Gibb (The Hidden Cameras), Anna Huff (Anna Oxygen/Cloud Eye Control), Chris Hornbecker, Sara Marcus (Girls to the Front), David Neevel, and Clark Goolsby.
Ink and paper lend themselves to fundraising efforts.
In the week since the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, we’ve seen a number of print items pop up across the internet as fundraising tools. Proceeds benefit a variety of humanitarian organizations, and formats range from art prints to oversized posters to pocket notebooks. Print is stepping into a role as a fundraising tool; though not a new role, it is an interesting one to consider.
“The people serving you coffee today come from a movement, not a company.”
So reads the first line of the Coffee Common Scout Book, just one branded piece of the Coffee Common movement that debuted yesterday at the 2011 TED conference in Long Beach, California.
All week long, an all-star cast of baristas will be serving up specially curated roasts of coffee from their myriad roasteries to lucky TED attendees. They assemble in Long Beach under the name Coffee Common, the latest incarnation of the newly-launched Common Brand.
Chipboard, spot colors and perfect binding. Yes, please.
RRR.002 is the second edition of a collaborative zine featuring the talents of an international group of makers including Pinball friends and collaborators. This edition is printed in full-color CMYK as well as one spot color, and features a chipboard cover and perfect binding. Made possible by support from Simple Shoes, RRR.002 was printed on recycled paper by Canada’s Westcan Printing Group.
From the RRR website:
We make waste for a living. So now we’re gonna make waste live. With a very short deadline a number of international artists and photographers were asked to act and respond. Look around your environment, see what you can save, pick it up, turn it over, and look at it in a different way.
RRR describes the work in the second edition as being a bit more personal, offering a more intimate view of the artists included. The group of collaborators has grown exponentially. Can’t wait to get our hands on this one!
Give Your Big Ideas A Little Room To Grow
Scout Books: pocket-friendly notebooks for your biggest ideas!
Phil Elverum: Print Pioneer of the Pacific Northwe...:
Phil Elverum is best known for his work as the bands Mount Eerie and The Microphones, as well as... 
Hatch Show Print:
Hatch Show Print is one of the oldest print shops in America. For a hundred years Hatch was a si... 
Carson Ellis, Illustrator Extraordinaire:
It is important to have heroes. It is also helpful when they are real people. I have my share of... 
Eco-friendly CD Packaging:
Printer: Pinball Publishing
Item: Pinball Pak (CD Packaging)
Paper: 20 pt. Chipboard
Inks: Pa... 
Coffee Common, Scout Books, TED 2011:
"The people serving you coffee today come from a movement, not a company."
So reads the first... 
Field Notes and Fifty States:
Item: Field Notes Colors "County Fair" 50 Editions
Paper: 100# linen cover stock (Blue, Red, Ye... Pinball Publishing is a creative publishing company located in Portland, Oregon. We are fueled by a love for print, collaboration, and the manufacture of meaningful things. Pinball powers a growing web of interconnected projects, including Scout Books, Bangback, and Print Pinball.
Bangback is a place for print. Here we share our own print projects as well as expanded coverage of print culture at large.
Print is dead. Long live print!
