The rated time limits are actual time limits from each maze in the book. I never knew that maze completion was ever so "official".
It occurs to me now, uploading each of these here, that I missed an opportunity for some (somewhat) hidden jokes... Each one says very small (and even smaller on the printed flier) "wear a costume or we will eat your brains" which is fine, and I like that, (because what kind of jerk shows up to a halloween party without a costume? one that deserves to have his/her brains eaten) however I should have changed that line on each flier to something like "wear a costume or we will massacre your family in the woods" and "wear a costume or we will cut you up with a chainsaw" and so on and so forth... oh well... lesson learned. These are still pretty great though, and I love interactive fliers.
I made one version that was more the "poster" for the night that we hung up around the club.. it's the Teenage Werewolf one, however the maze part is blacked out so it looks like he's wearing pants and a jacket. Since the maze version of it was the last one that we released before Halloween, that was the big reveal for this poster. Again, I don't think anyone was really paying any attention.
I was asked to do a flier for a Halloween show on the main stage of the Chameleon Club. It was a show featuring local bands performing as other (more well known) bands. Sure to be a fun night for all.
CI Records books a TON of shows/year at the Chameleon Club, and their fliers are very recognizable... The template usually involves a nice high res photo of the headlining band, big, bold logos, and an info bar at the bottom of the page. Backgrounds vary, but they are usually simple, and never take away from the important stuff. This was the only digital example of one of these fliers that I could find...
None of the bands playing the Halloween show had any kind of press photography, logos, or anything so I thought why not use photos of Dracula, the Mummy, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman (as if THEY are the band) and build the flier around them... I matched the fonts in the info box and measured it to be sure it was the same dimensions. It took some time to track down and touch up the right photos, but it came together rather nicely...
It is supposed to be "NEAL" YOUNG, as per request of the Shitty Shitty Band Band. So no, I did not misspell anything.
I should have put Dracula more in the background since the lighting on his photo is not quite as bright (he kind of hides in the shadows anyway), whatever...
CI fliers are also always printed on colored paper, for these rip offs I chose orange (because Halloween) and they looked great!
I had been collecting old Sears and JC Penney Christmas catalogs because that is a normal thing that everybody collects (like Beanie Babies or Coca Cola memorabilia) and one day while brainstorming HOW to make a Pre-Thanksgiving Dance Party flier, I came across the above image in one of those catalogs.
The stocked fridge looked great, the colors, the background dining room, all of it awesome... but it certainly doesn't scream DANCE PARTY. I mean I guess it does catch one's eye - like... "What the fuck is this about?" and then you read it and whatever, but I've just never been too excited about this flier... I do like the horn of plenty illustration though, and the NO FOOD PROVIDED is kind of funny, but BLEH!
I loved this image of a tattered old magazine, ripped up around the edges (and the title WOMANHOOD was just great) I tried to find and use fonts that looked like they could've been used on the original magazine cover, and made up a few "story features" that made sense for a night of dancing.
I'm very happy with how this turned out, especially considering it was probably the third or fourth flier I ever made.
I kind of figured that a flier recommending violence might be frowned upon, regardless if its a reference to the Misfits or not, so I immediately made a backup.
All HELL is breaking loose is another reference to an awesome Misfits song, and since HELL is in green its actually a DOUBLE reference. Superfans get it.
I used the same font for everything. Changing the case for certain letters in each of the opening band's names to keep more in line with the Misfits logo. For the second "HELL" flier, I outlined the support bands in green so that the green "HELL" didn't stand out too much, and I think overall it was a nice looking flier.
Evidently, one of the openers (could've been any of them, I don't remember which one) had an "official" logo, and they took it upon themselves to make all the necessary (pixelated and color ruining) changes.
Sorry guys. I guess you liked my flier but maybe not?
Oh well...kind of fucked up, but really though, who cares? It was still the goddamned MISFITS, and I sang along to (almost*) every song.
*WCW era songs and beyond not included.
Ohhh AND-
I had to DJ that night (after the show) with DJ Neidermeyer, who up until recently was one of our local TV weathermen (I know, right? - weird - and actually he was a meteorologist). I figured I would make a flier for our DJ night (that hopefully no one would take and fuck with). Can you predict what I came up with?
Cairo started DJing with Image (a very experienced, very talented local DJ) one night per month.. He (Cairo) contacted me about doing a flier for them, I wasn't sure what to do. I knew I had to abandon the "action star w/ gun" motif I had used for Cairo and myself, but what could I use to accurately represent this new power duo?
It was simple, bold, and memorable. One of my favorite designs. Early versions varied the bars, as well as the IMAGE AND CAIRO text within them, I tried to keep the text in the bars readable, but from a distance it would be harder, if not impossible to see.. so that it just looked like EQ bars. Cairo himself was instrumental in guiding the design along to get it to the point where it is now. The best part about this was that it was all design... no previously used image, no copying the work of someone else... a nice, beautiful design. A collaboration that we could both be legitimately proud of. Not to be our last collaboration either.
Over the next few months, I would use this design for Image & Cairo on different occasions, never wanting to wear out its welcome, just as a way to keep it in people's minds.
DJ Freez (another very talented, very well known local DJ) was promoting an event that he was staging upstairs at the Chameleon Club, meanwhile, Image and Cairo were spinning downstairs. Freez decided to call his night EARGASM and here is the flier that was made for it (not by me).
Sorry, Freez (if you are reading this) that name still makes me gag a little bit...
It made me remember DJ Freez Friday Dance parties of years past (he used to call them "Pleasure Fridays" - still kinda gross)... so I decided to antagonize him with IMAGE & CAIRO specific fliers for the same night (for fun).
You get the idea. These were not widely distributed.
A few months later IMAGE & CAIRO were DJing on September 11. I made a very "safe" flier for them, which was a reference to an old Factory Records poster... both examples are below:
I always loved that Factory poster. All of Factory's design, in fact. It was fun to do my best impression of Peter Saville.
...And then I made these (NEVER distributed, and never available anywhere until now).
Obviously the tragedy of September 11, 2001 still weighs heavily on us as a nation, it was a horrible event that if you are old enough remember it, you are likely to never for the rest of your life forget it.
These images were made to be subversive and to get people talking about something, whether good or bad. I kept them black and white, to make them as stark as possible and leave little room for misconception.
I never printed these, or distributed them because I did not want any negative ramifications to come back on the venue. These were my work, alone, and I take full responsibility... So on my personal blog, showcasing my work, I'm more comfortable.
As a designer, and someone with a strong background in punk rock and defiant behavior, occasionally I might create something that you find shocking, repulsive, or offensive. Life can sometimes be that way.
Anyway, I never really used the Volume design again (in print or otherwise) after that until much later, when Cairo wanted me to design his business card.
Took off the second EQ bar, replaced VOLUME with Cairo and positioned it on the card so that when viewed horizontally (in a card holder perhaps) the EQ bar would be maxed out in the right direction (left to right) and the name and design would be recognizable and readable at a glance (if it were centered on the card, or positioned on the right side, this would not be the case when the card was resting in a business card holder).
The back of the card contained all contact info, and was nicely laid out in its own right, but as far as I know, the contact info is still the same, and Cairo might not like the idea of me publicly displaying his phone number and such. Sorry, would-be Cairo stalker.
UGH. What was I thinking? I don't know... I got the name stuck in my head, and found the best photo example of a bad toupee that I could and just ran with it. The text is nice and bold, but the layout is horrible and I am embarrassed to include this.
"Nostradamus Discotheque" was Max J's & Smiles' idea. I have no idea why or what it meant, but I tried to make a flier that represented both of those things well. Figuring out how to put Nostradamus' head inside the disco ball wasn't easy (at the time), and I cursed this flier more than once. Eventually things work out.
I forget who's idea it was to have an "urban" flier for this night, but this was my attempt at just that. Bikini girl, hooptie, snowman, wreath... This is just like all the fliers that you see in the big cities. Right?
After the "Make my Friday" flier (and night) Cairo and I continued our DJ partnership, and a few months later I made the first DEF WISH flier. "Make my Friday" was Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry, of course and I originally wanted to continue using only Dirty Harry with guns images, when I couldn't find good, clean, and large enough images to use, I switched my attention to Charles Bronson and Death Wish. The first poster was great (I believe it was actually a poster for Death Wish 2) so I used my old standby method of removing and replacing text. Considering our nights were usually very hip hop heavy, the name DEF WISH was too perfect to not use.
I thought that there was a tiny info block on the DEF WISH 2 flier originally (like there is on the first flier) saying the basic, no cover/21+ stuff... but maybe not. By that point, if you didn't know what it was all about you probably weren't going to come anyway.
This is one of my favorites. It's a total rip off of an old D&D player's manual titled "Men and Magic". The "Age Requirement" still makes me laugh. These were printed on a rough light tan card stock (just like the covers of the original manuals)... a detail that went largely unnoticed (just like the reference to the source material, which I don't think many people were even aware of).
Sometimes I DJ under the name Ned Tugent, and I play only classic rock ON VINYL (because I am a music snob and fuck you). When Blue Oyster Cult was playing the Chameleon Club, and Ned Tugent was asked to DJ the "after party" in the downstairs bar, I knew exactly what I wanted the flier to be...
I took the cover (I happen own the album) and scanned it, then painstakingly manipulated it in photoshop to remove BOC's logo and all other text, so that I could put my own info on instead. The brushed metal look of the text was difficult to replicate exactly, but the end result is close enough (my vinyl copy had been a bit faded over the years)...
These were printed 12"x12" and hung all over the club on the night of the show. No word on what the BOC guys might have thought of them.
I think that was the same night that Eric Bloom (singer) was getting something out of the trunk of his car, and bashed his head on the underside of the trunk door, he was bleeding profusely and the show had to be postponed for about an hour until he was ready to go on stage. He did, and they were great. Needless to say they had a few other things to worry about that night than some weird posters.
(This poster is also a call back to a very early Ned Tugent flier that my friend Tim Smith did for me... we took an old Ted Nugent album and kind of did this very same thing - and printed it 12"x12" - record burn and all.. someday I'll find that file and post it here)
Promo card for a release that never was (yet?). SexTape threw in the towel before "soon" ever came, which is sad. I'm very happy with this design, though... Which was one of the few design projects I had with SexTape. The BitClipr logo and SexTape logo are the work of Chris Malec (an incredibly talented graphic designer who was kind enough to let some hack play around with his work). I placed all of the text and stripes to give the thing some kind of "design", but I had this perfect square of black space in the upper left. I thought using crude floppy disc elements was perfect. BitClipr's music is very electronic, very dance. So the floppy disc references the electronic aspect of things, and I think all alone up there in the upper left it also kind of looks like a hanging disco ball, which references the dance-y part of it.
Printed 200+ of these things to be handed out at a show in Philadelphia that BitClipr was playing (opening for Juan Maclean). Evidently, crowd response to both BitClipr and this flier was positive.
Found this image, which is beautiful, it was a book cover I believe. I think it was even called "The Future" so I scrubbed all of the original text off, placed all new text, and called it a day. Now that I think of it, THIS might have been the first flier I designed on my own.
The idea for the night itself was spacey prog rock from (as you can see) 1970 and beyond. I don't think they wanted to play anything modern at all. I thought I was being quite clever with my "Take a step forward, back in time" line.
Sci Fi and nerd stuff always played pretty big with fliers I did for Battlecat and Vehicles. I don't know if they ever really cared one way or another, I never got much direction from either one of them, but I think they were always happy with my results.
This was, I believe, the first flier that I made on my own (meaning, I got copies of illustrator and photoshop and I wanted to break away from always having other people do my design work) I had NO IDEA what I was doing at the time. I found the cool Dirty Harry image, crudely cut around it in photoshop, put it against a two tone background, and came up with what I thought was a pretty funny name for the night. The End.
I don't remember choosing such plain text for the info, but I probably did, I would change that now. The placement of the white text is weird, too. Oh well- lesson learned.
Notice the tonearm in the bottom left. I put that on everything early on... now I just end up forgetting, or I don't care, or I find that it takes away from the overall design of things sometimes, so I just leave it off. Uncredited. I'm not some fucking Picasso.
This was created and used as part of the ad campaign for the short lived Lancaster Record Revival (a Lancaster PA based record show to be held monthly at the Chameleon Club). The record show didn't last long because waking up so early on Sundays is FOR THE BIRDS, (literally). I always loved this image though, and I think its a nice way to kick off this tumblr compendium of my work (which will range from awful to better and back again). It combines vinyl (I am a DJ sometimes) Lancaster PA (thats the seal on the center of the record, and also where I am from) and lightning (because lightning). Hi, I'm T.
