JASON MUNN THE SMALL STAKES
LEEDS COLLEGE OF ART EXHIBITION 3RD SEPTEMBER - 25TH FEBRUARY
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About Jason Munn is originally from Wisconsin but now calls Oakland, California home. Arising from a love of independent music, design, and making for the sake of making, his posters soon became a fixture in the local independent music scene. He started The Small Stakes in the fall of 2003, and it has since unfolded into a successful independent design studio, producing nationally and internationally commissioned work in a range of print materials, including book covers, album packaging, T-shirt designs, screen-printed posters, and illustrations. Jason’s work has appeared in Print, Communication Arts, Step Inside Design, Computer Arts Projects, ReadyMade, and Creative Review. His work has also been featured in numerous exhibits and is part of the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
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DR. STRANGELOVE Two color silkscreen 18” x 24”
JEFF TWEEDY two color silkscreen 19” x 25”
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4 Interview Favorite poster you’ve created?
Fiskars they gave me this pair of engraved
The 1st books poster
scissors.
Where does the Small Stakes name come
So what did you after you got out of school?
from?
I got 2 jobs. One was an internship for Fiskars
A song by Spoon of the same name. The song
( the scissors company) doing packaging etc.
is about taking chances and I saw starting my
and the other was a position at a small firm
own business as taking my own chances.
called distiller design. It was cool, when I left Fiskars they gave me this pair of engraved
What were some of your early influences?
scissors.
Album covers, especially from some of the midwest bands like Boys Life, Promise Ring,and
How long did you work in Wisconsin till you
Giant’s Chair. Also Jeff Kleinsmith’s work on
moved to the “O” (Oakland)?
Sub Pop. Jeff’s cover for Sideshow’s lip read
About a year and a half.
confusion really stuck in my mind and inspired me to be a designer. Besides album covers,
Did you have a job lined up before you moved
I was really into skateboard graphics, the
here?
designs on the bottom of the decks etc.
Nope, I just grabbed my portfolio and went. When I got here I was trying to get jobs at some
Did you goto an art/design school?
of the local firms but, I got here at the wrong
Well, I went to a university where I studied fine
time (right in the middle of the dotcom bust) so
arts. I thought I needed a fine arts degree if I
no one was hiring.
wanted to get into advertising/design. It wasn’t till later that I realized what I really need were
So what did you do?
classes in design.
I worked various jobs. I worked at a t-shirt printing shop, cleaning screens, packing,
So what did you after you got out of school?
wherever they needed help. Then I got an
I got 2 jobs. One was an internship for Fiskars
internship at Noise13. Around the same time a
( the scissors company) doing packaging etc.
friend of mine started booking shows at a place
and the other was a position at a small firm
called the ramp and they asked me to design
called distiller design. It was cool, when I left
posters for their shows.
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What is the ramp?
found imagery. Where were you finding your
It was a venue located in the basement of a
source material?
church in Berkeley.
I was searching public libraries, Dover books, found image books etc.
Who were some of the bands that played at the ramp that you designed posters for?
Why were you using found imagery?
Brother danielson, Why?, Animal Collective,
At first I wasn’t confident in my abilities to
Damien Jurado, Rob Crowe, etc.
draw etc. Plus it was a huge part of the learning process for me. I was learning how images
When did you start doing posters full time?
work together but, as I became more confident,
I had just moved into my own studio apartment
I started to incorporate more illustration into
(I was previously living with 4 other guys). I
my work.
needed a way to come up with rent each month so, thats when I started to take my poster
Whats it been like to make that transition be-
design work more seriously.
tween working exclusively with found imagery to a mix of that and hand drawn elements?
When did you start getting the bigger jobs?
My posters take longer to create. Plus, it
I started to get know many of the bands that
takes a while to come up with a strong central
played at the ramp. If they were coming to town
image. I’m also adding different types of found
I would contact them directly and ask if I could
imagery. For example, in the Bright Eyes poster
design the poster for the show. I met Death
I used real flowers and scanned in black pieces
Cab for Cutie’s management and They hired to
of paper for the bow. For the Stellastarr poster
me to do a poster and some merch designs for
I used a wedding veil for the hair.
them and it received a fair amount of attention and that led to more work. Around this time there were some guys in Berkeley that put together a book called The art of modern rock. I submitted some pieces for that. The book did really well so, that led to more work as well. Many of your earlier works were created using
by Grain Edit
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CHAVEZ Two color silkscreen 18” x 24”
TUNE-YARDS Three color silkscreen 18” x 24”
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Contact Details Leeds College of Art Blenheim Walk Leeds LS2 9AQ 0113 202 8000 info@leeds-art.ac.uk www.leeds-art.ac.uk