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A Division of UnderConsideration

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2009
–
2017

Finding clients and new projects is no easy feat, but for some reason when there is the added element of personal passion for something in particular that the potential client/project has to offer it all becomes easier. Steve both stumbled upon and chased a couple of projects for singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash in such a manner, and I think his patience, perseverance and wit payed off.

Last fall I made the acquaintance of Rosanne Cash via Twitter. I designed a logo — which she loved — for her band, Hot Commando Bunny, and jokingly asked if I should bring t-shirts to her show in Ann Arbor the following evening. She said, “If you bring shirts, I will buy them from you.”

So that happened.

We remained in contact and I told her about Capital A and the gig posters we make by hand. Soon Christmas gifts were made for Hot Commando Bunny and not long after, Rosanne invited me to design an inspirational print around a line from her memoir, “Composed.” I get a lot of inspiration and imagery from The Library of Congress website. Most images are in the public domain and are often production-quality resolution. I think Rosanne liked the vintage feel of the HCB poster, so I went back to that source.

Being a poster of a quote, the words are the main attraction, so I wanted an image with a lot of space. I had just finished reading ‘Composed’ and taken note of Rosanne’s relationship with the sea. The quote spoke to me of wonder and a little sadness, which drew me to children and innocence. But the words also evoked elevation, the ‘lifting up’ that comes with art and music and faith and love. So I added the leaping dancer, far away. A vision. A god-like juxtaposition of beauty and mystery. That, combined with the pointing, curious, stopped-in-their-tracks children made it work for me, and&emdash;after a bit of collaboration&emdash;work for Rosanne.

Though screen printing is a very forgiving production method, when making a high-profile print, one becomes aware of idiosyncrasies that might’ve gotten a pass on other projects. We had a slightly confounding problem with our homemade vacuum table that needed to be worked out. Seems that, over time, moisture in the air holes caused the melamine to dimple up in spots and caused a strange pattern in the prints. All 3 colors were pretty heavy coverage and this undesirable pattern was coming up in every one of our screens! Took some time to track down and about a hundred blown sheets, but a little sandpaper took care of the problem. And we had some exposure issues (blown out) with the big, black halftone. These were traced back to some old (stale?) emulsion. Turns out fresh emulsion is more light sensitive. Huh.

Brandy and Tafari Wedding Invite

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Indiana University Union Board Magazine

Rosanne Cash Poster

Production Method

Design

Copy: Rosanne Cash
Design: Steve Mockensturm
Photograph courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Printing

Capital A, screen printers