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Allison, aka Strawberry Luna, has so many killer posters, I had a tough time picking 12. Check out her site and buy her stuff. In the meantime, here’s some of her answers to my heavily, probing questions.
Give us a little background on your formative years, did you have a creative childhood?
As a kid I drew AND wrote constantly. I was always writing little stories and then illustrating them. I might have written a little more than I drew, or at least that was definitely the case by the time that I was in middle and high school. It’s quite likely that I did poorly in math as much for writing short stories in class as for my fairly intense dyslexia. I actually thought that I would be a writer, and not an artist, though I love both types of creative expression. I was rarely very happy with my painting work, but I kept at the pencil and pen and ink sketches. When I was a teenager, I learned how to do crude linoleum cut prints and really liked the idea and processes of printmaking. But, it wasn’t until I found a local printmaking co-op here in Pittsburgh that I learned to screenprint and fell in love immediately. I think that was the magic moment that brought all of these diverse and formerly unrelated things together in my life. I absolutely
adore the flatness of screenprinting, and while a lot of the fine art world still sees that aspect as a limitation, I find it to be beautiful and amazing. I think that it is the bare-bones simplicity of the screenprinting technique that allows for so much variation in what can be done with the same materials.
How long have you been designing posters?
I’ve been working on posters specifically since March of 2005, so, 3.5 years now. By a lot of standards, that makes me a newbie upstart!
Beside your own work, which poster designer(s) inspire you most?
Ha-HA! The hard question! I see how it is. Well, in terms of other poster designers, I am really in love with the work of Zeeloot & Mike Budai, Delicious Design League is always up to fresh and interesting work, as well as the hard working crews at Hero Design Studio and the Doublenaut boys. I look up to The Decoder Ring Design Concern, Aesthetic Apparatus and Methane Studios like the cool friends of the older brother that I don’t have. What is crazy to me about this business is that I am friends with many of the folks whose work I really admire, I find that to be a really interesting and rare perk. However, the last poster that I actually bought was one of The Bubble Process’ Girl Talk posters, it’s the jam.
If you could do poster work for any band(s), who would it be and why?
I would probably fall down and die if I could do work for bands like The Cardigans on their hitherto, imaginary un-organized massive world tour, same goes for Jurassic 5, and I’d be tickled to do more work for Belle & Sebastian. Also, I can’t wait to one day work with one of my favorite bands not enough people have heard of: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Boys, if you are reading this? Hello! Those are 4 bands whose music I still haven’t hit that wall with where you feel like perhaps you should take a break. Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald should be on that list too, but, I probably shouldn’t hold my breath for those gigs, eh? The reasons for wanting to work for the latter two go, of course, without saying.
What does the future hold for you and your work?
Right now am I working on a nice slew of new art prints actually as the music touring season is winding down a bit - I just need to find the time to actually PRINT them, (which, is a good problem to have.) A couple of them are just stand alone pieces, but I am gearing up to work on a set of prints based on fairy and folk tales as well, and those are going to be a bit darker in theme. I’m pretty excited about that, as I have been obsessed with the more weird and brutal tales and themes of those sorts of stories my whole life. I’ve got a couple of big rad things on the horizon for 2009 too. I will be in at least one big fat poster book, hopefully two if all goes well. And that’s all that I am allowed to say on THAT subject. Keep your fingers crossed for me though, because there there are a few other pretty cool, currently top-secret projects in the works for next year, perhaps words like “textiles” and “books” give a hint.
Thumbnail images graciously borrowed from GP
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strawberryluna 12.02.08 at 2:53 pm
Man, what a dork.
Rocket 12.02.08 at 3:13 pm
yeah, totally… i mean, no, you’re totally cool.