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María del Río HUSH Post Typography Tavis Coburn 60 Years of Advertising Exhibit
November/December 2019 Twenty-Four Dollars commarts.com
POST TYPOGRAPHY
Democratizing and
Cheerfully Rude
A
By Jude Stewart
llow me to begin by stating that Nolen Strals and Bruce Willen, the design duo behind Post Typography, are bright, well-mannered people. They’re also eminent professionals. Since they established their Baltimore-based agency in 2007, it has amassed a multidisciplinary body of work including branding, illustration, environmental design and, of course, typography. Post’s clients include the New York Times Magazine, Random House and the Maryland Film Festival. Its portfolio advances social-justice causes and welcomes ordinary people of all kinds.
stuff for a friend’s band for a few bucks. Maybe we could pay rent with this.’”
Now, keep all this in mind as we begin with a less-thanperfectly-polite anecdote.
I enter into what was previously a front-room parlor, now lined with desks. Light filters through the front window amid a tangle of houseplants and one dogged poinsettia.
“In the early 2000s, we were collaborating on a poster for this band, Arab on Radar,” recalls Strals. Then students at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Strals and Willen played together in a heavy metal band called League of Death. “Arab on Radar’s lyrics are sexually charged, and their music is very harsh,” Strals continues. “We took a photo of the Beatles and snuck into MICA’s mail room. I had my boss’s key because that was my work-study job. We downloaded porn on the computer, cut the Beatles’ heads off, replaced them with boners and drew all of the band names as semen flying out the top.” “Your mom’s going to love this story,” interjects Willen, at which Strals ruefully laughs. “True, and [MICA] might take my degree away,” he says, continuing, “As we were drawing the letters, one of us remarked that making letters from that substance is what you might call ‘post typographic.’ We thought that was funny and decided Post Typography would be the name that we collaborate under.” Wit and subversion are twin kinds of intelligence, a theme that persists in Post’s work. Strals graduated from MICA before Willen, but the two designers kept in touch. They still played music together, reforming as punk trio Double Dagger. Willen briefly moved to Delaware to work at House Industries, later returning to Baltimore. All the while, “we continued working together for music-related projects and freelance work,” Willen says. Then, “some friends who worked at the New York Times were like, ‘You guys should send stuff to our art directors.’ That’s when we realized, ‘Oh, this isn’t just doing
Or buy a Baltimore row home. I meet Willen and Strals there, where Post’s offices occupy most of a nineteenth-century building in the Old Goucher neighborhood. I can’t see a sign that announces Post’s presence, until I notice a cleverly altered NO LOITERING sign. It’s overlaid with a splash of highlighter-yellow and royal-purple lettering that reads: TOMORROW, THIS IS PUBLIC SPACE FOR ALL. The lettering trembles as if it’s a disturbed communications broadcast.
After meeting colleagues Christian Mortlock and Kacie Mills, I follow Strals and Willen up the wooden staircase. Strals leads the way; as we climb, I’m eye level with his bowling shirt, with the words Pay Attention across his shoulder blades. (It’s a design by Barney Bubbles, an English album designer in the late 1970s through 1980s.) The tour culminates on the roof deck, revealing Baltimore’s low, crooked skyline. Heading back downstairs, we traverse a hallway painted tomato red and lined with limited edition prints that Post created for an exhibit commemorating the War of 1812. We settle in the rear conference room, whose most noteworthy feature is a massive, square basketball hoop at chest level. Willen dunks a square beanbag basketball—swish!—before we sit down. Humor is manifest everywhere in Post Typography’s designs —the kind of humor that lets everyone in on the joke, and springs from such skilled confidence, it can afford to be good natured. Take Post’s client 2SP Brewing Company, cofounded in 2015 by award-winning brewer Bob Barrar. Mike Contreras, 2SP’s vice president of marketing and sales, describes the crowded market they were entering: “You go into a beer store, all the brands fall into category types. You’ve got your Allagash and Nevada Pale Ales, whose brands say, ‘We like to hike, we like our coconut water,’ that kind of thing.” (Contreras’s pungent Philly accent makes it clear how he feels about coconut water.) “You’ve got your commodi-
Captions supplied by Post Typography. Right: “A chance meeting in a bar years ago eventually led to our partnership with 2SP Brewing Company. At first, we thought their name sounded like it belonged to an auto parts company. That, combined with their location in proudly blue collar Delaware County, led us to a look inspired by early twentiethcentury oilcans and industrial advertising. We filtered that graphic history through a contemporary lens, adding pop-art colors and pairing it all with clever copy that mixes colloquialisms, witty wordplay and classic advertising hype.” Nolen Strals/Bruce Willen, art directors; Kacie Mills/Christian Mortlock/Zack Vabolis, designers; Nolen Strals, creative director; 2SP Brewing Company, client. 52
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POSTERS 1 Vic Bath, art director/designer Jordon Lawson/Sophia Lucken, writers Ian Grais/Leia Rogers/Bob Simpson/Chris Staples, creative directors Steve Holme, retoucher Kerry Bhangu, print producer Total Graphics, production company Rethink (Toronto, Canada), ad agency A&W Canada, client “To help promote the switch from plastic to paper straws, select A&W locations were given posters that could be rolled up for an eye-catching, eco-friendly message.”
2 Gerard Weber, art director Janelle Anne/Nick Ceglia/Gabe Koplowitz, senior writers Nate Coonrod/Jim D’Amico/Julie Ruiz, creative directors Meghan Kirsch, chief creative officer Samantha Aldeborgh/Eric Bubas, designers Amy Lombard, photographer Melissa Stammer, production designer Katie Kingzett, production manager Zeynep Zileli, executive director of production Juliet Thompson, producer VICELAND (Brooklyn, NY), ad agency/client
3 Ninet Moon/Candice Silver, art directors Peter Sreckovic, writer Scott Dube/Randy Stein, creative directors Tim Lynch, print producer Grip Limited (Toronto, Canada), ad agency KFC Canada, client
4 (series) Diogo Valim, art director Bruno Barbieri, writer Jeremy Wirth, creative director Chuck Monn, group creative director Brent Anderson, chief creative officer Josh Marcy/Peymon Maskan, music Kate Hildebrant, integrated production director Brian O’Rourke, executive director of production Cristiana Ladki Williams, senior producer TBWA\Media Arts Lab (Los Angeles, CA), ad agency Apple, client
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SELF-PROMOTION 1 Eric Fern Carriere, art director Rena Green, writer Ryan Lawrence, associate creative director James Ansley/Joel Arbez, executive creative directors Emiliano González De Pietri/Helen Pak, chief creative officers Genevieve Beharry, design director Pablo Mellognio, developer Grey Canada (Toronto, Canada), ad agency Aman Gulati/Stephen Jurisic, Miami Ad School Toronto, clients “Some of the best copywriters in the world have started novels, but never got around to finishing them. The winners of hundreds of Lions have literary oeuvres collecting dust in filing cabinets, and, more importantly, generating zero profit. We reached out to those creative geniuses and asked them to submit their manuscripts. The plan was to sell the book and use the profits to fund a Miami Ad School Toronto scholarship. Effectively paying for the education of one future copywriter with a bunch of Microsoft Word documents— now, that’s poetic justice.”
2 Andrea Por, art director Christina Roche, writer Zak Mroueh, creative director Ryan Booth, designer Greg Heptinstall/Andrew Martin, digital imaging Kelly Flynn/Terri Mattucci, project managers Matthew Sinuita, program manager Laura Dubcovsky, producer Zulu Alpha Kilo (Toronto, Canada), ad agency One Show, client “On the night of the One Show awards gala, everyone in attendance had the opportunity to take home a One Show gold pencil. No one left emptyhanded, even if it wasn’t the pencil they were hoping to take home.”
3 Doug Pedersen, art director Doug Pedersen Art & Design (Excelsior, MN), ad agency/client “Actual Rubbish sets out to make today’s already unbelievable news even more unbelievable. It takes real news headlines from real sources and mixes them up to see what it might be like if the world went more insane. The resulting headlines are presented in a chaotic visual manner meant to approximate the information overload we experience today. All profits from the sale of Actual Rubbish were donated to help protect freedom of the press.”
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FRESH JOE CARROTTA © Vincent Tullo
Underneath a thin veneer of the mundane is a world full of extraordinary things, and New York–based photographer Joe Carrotta has made it his mission to capture them. His career primarily began in photographing weddings and events, which undoubtedly helped train him to find the artful in the spontaneous. “I searched for stories that enabled me to fuse my personal interests, like marine conservancy, and my tendency to find weird subjects,” Carrotta says. “After completing two longterm documentary projects—stories about body suspension and whale observation—I knew that journalism truly made me happy.” For the latter project, which started out as his senior thesis, he followed Dr. Arthur Kopelman of the Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island on whale-watching expeditions. One photo from the series brings viewers a close-up view of a humpback whale that few would have otherwise had a chance to see. Images from the story eventually accompanied an article for the New York Times, and Carrotta’s visual storytelling has also garnered work with Narratively, as well as acceptance into the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop for photojournalists. joecarrotta.com
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