100 samples show: Our poster for Wilco’s Savannah show is in there among some great samples from talented artists and designers. They also try to answer the question “What is a great poster?”

Enjoy!

Crosshair in Chicago screen printed them off of our color separations (spot white and metallic gold inks on French Paper’s Construction Paver Red line), then they were driven (yes, driven) to Wisconsin’s Great Lakes Flocking, the company that then added the amazing element of flocking (think raised red velvet texture!), and with that, they were then trimmed and sent (RUSH) to Chicago. What the heck is “flocking”?

We’d like to thank Wilco and TMM for an amazing opportunity to be a small part of a grand city tour concept. Chicago did indeed get “The Whole Love” from Wilco.

Make sure to check out the gallery below for detail shots of each poster design and some photos of the merch area at the venues. You can also head over to Wilco’s Facebook page and see each and every setlist and poster here. Big thanks to Bill Mooney for inspiring the series. Design: D.R. Sapperstein and The Silent P.

We recently finished up a poster design for Wilco’s October 4th show in St. Louis, MO.

One of those little birdies to the right of the arch told us that these sold out at the show. Below are some of the process shots, details and even the initial idea as we sketched it out. Sometimes everything falls into place, THIS was one of those times. You can grab one of the limited edition prints in THE SHOP…we have a total of 25 artist prints, numbered and signed out of 200.

HUGE thank you to our bestest pals over at The Half and Half for the expertise on this 6 color beast! TWO metallic inks: One silver, another blue metallic to help create the shadow.

Read more about the famous landmark here and its amazing designer: Gateway Arch.

* EDITOR’S NOTE: It seems fitting to mention: This art was created and produced using a Mac. Listen to a pretty amazing commencement speech by Steve Jobs here.

Over and out…
-The Silent P

Thanks to crew over at Blue Collar Press for doing another fantastic job with these new buttons.

Shield your eyes from the vibrant glory.

We were thrilled to be working with Farewell Milwaukee on their latest album release “When It Sinks In.” This is a band you should get to know if you have not already. They are from Minneapolis, MN, (don’t let the name fool you). We hope for big things from these great guys!

While designing and conceptualizing images that evoke the emotions coming from this well crafted and warm toned group of songs, we got to listen to pre mastered tracks of this great album. The band’s website has some really sharp performance videos as well here: Farewell Milwaukee videos. As is the case with most our work, the pen and ink and brushes came out for this one. If you can create something truly original and unique (instead of a font that everyone else has access to getting), a graphic ARTIST should do that as often as possible.  As is true with several of the album designs we’ve produced, we got the privilege of working with great band photography by Darin Back, check his work out here: www.darinbackphoto.com/

Make sure to check out the variety of photographs of this design below in the gallery, artfully shot by Jon Eckard (www.joneckard.com/)
Go buy this one now. It’s good for you. PURCHASE HARD WORKING BAND’S WORK OF ART HERE.

We were recently hired to design the latest CD release from two-time Grammy-nominated jazz musician/composer extraordinaire Dave Douglas.

This is another one that started as one style (original illustration) and ended up being based on photography + typography. Still loved the process…Make SURE to check out some of the process below, as we show some of the illustration and art styles initially presented. We also have the album cover as seen on iTunes page.

Picking up where their critically acclaimed debut Spirit Moves (Greenleaf 2009) left off, United Front (Douglas’ 32nd release) sees this all-star band plunging into Douglas’ compositions (plus one Hank Williams Sr. tune) with an intensity and exuberance garnered only at a live jazz concert, particularly one with the legacy and spirit of Newport. The album features tunes from Spirit Moves including the 12-plus minute set closer “Bowie” – a tribute to Lester Bowie – that steadily works the crowd into a loud and appreciative frenzy. Also included are two previously unreleased songs, “Spirit Moves” and “United Front.”

Watch “Bowie” in action here: http://vimeo.com/5079152

The idea for this Wilco tee shirt design came after a recent game of the classic board game played with friends. I lost, but this shirt won client approval. We went through several versions, some of which spelled different things like: “CALL WILCO WHO ROCK”, “ON NIFTY FEW”…you get the idea. Our thanks go out to one particular friend who played Scrabble® for what we assume must’ve been hours to see what variations with the letters ‘W-I-L-C-O’ he could create.

So after simplifying the message, shown is the actual printed tee that is now available at the Wilco store here. Make sure to check out the gallery of detail shots and full tee shirt design (don’t lose that empty square!).

“Where on earth am I gonna play that ‘Z’?!”

We are fortunate to come across some really cool projects to get to work on now and again. This design project for the super group The Baseball Project was a real thrill and honor to get to produce. This band is is composed of Scott McCaughey (Minus 5, R.E.M.), Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, Gutterball), Peter Buck (R.E.M.), and Linda Pitmon (Miracle 3, Golden Smog). The Baseball Project were recently featured on NPR’s “Weekend Edition”, you can listen to the interview here. The band’s online store has the CD and tee shirt we did available for purchase too.

R.E.M.?! R.E.M.??? As lifelong R.E.M. fans, we loved getting the chance to help create something unique for this Super Group side project. There’s also a personal story about the old archival photo used on the back of the CD package…We needed a unique image for the back, something that tied in the feel from the old felt pennants design on the front cover. We had recently come across a great old photograph of Earl Pfahlert, our grandfather. In it, he’s posing with his baseball team from Holgate, Ohio. The actual baseball uniform he’s wearing in the photo below was also discovered in a box from the garage. So, the plan now is to frame the photo and include the uniform in a large shadow box (along with a copy of The Baseball Project CD)! We think our Gramps would’ve gotten a kick out of being on this package design, we sure did when it was approved!

Here’s the back with a detail shot of our Grandfather:

Earl Pfahlert, seated, bottom right.

Enjoy the rest of the images from this fun project…

Photo by Jon Eckard Photography.

We really enjoyed working on our latest poster for the Trey Anastasio Band. The vibe we were after was vintage 1970′s skateboarding from California.

Half the fun was researching (and reliving!) skateboard culture from the late 70′s (a time we hold dear here). Tons of images out there of old skate company stickers and decks that we were really happy to see online.  Based on a couple images of vintage 1970′s skate decks, we then illustrated and designed “Trey Anastasio Band” vintage skateboards (custom stickers and all). Pretty dang fun. Make sure to check out the detail images in the gallery below!

One of the great pages we found online for vintage skateboarding themes was this collection of advertising from the 1970′s and 1980′s. Ebay also has a few collectors that have skate stickers and decks that date from the same era, some really amazing designs are available.

A personal note: Matt’s first deck was a blue Variflex with sweet orange wheels. His big brother had a Variflex then moved on to Kryptonics…what a great trip down memory lane.

You can purchase this SIX COLOR poster at the shop, only 10 signed and numbered available! Click here! HUGE thanks to Nick and the crew at The Half and Half, amazing print as always.

We’re suckers for comedy here at Pfahlert Creative Labs, and the fellas over at Found Footage Festival are as well. The Found Footage Festival is a live comedyevent and screening featuring unusual and humorous clips fromVHSvideotapes gathered from thrift stores, garage sales, warehouses, estate sales, and dumpsters throughout the United States. You can also enjoy a bunch of clips on their website, but beware: It IS a time killer.

The poster design above was what we created for their tours in a vast variety of towns in the United States. The project stalled out, but we loved this thing so much we wanted to at least show it and get some feedback from the masses. The concept that the VHS tape could become a character himself (or herself) seemed quite fitting and fun, so we made this guy smiling from ear to ear with twisted video tape. Even the eyebrows are made from clips of videotape. The colors all overprint too, which is always nice to look at. The hand writing that reads “DO NOT TAPE OVER!” was done by Mark Pfahlert, a very close relative to The Pfahlert Creative Labs. The background image is made up 18 videotapes we still had at the house, photographed then duplicated. We had some awesome things labeled like “David Letterman Show, 1989″, “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ and even had an obscure Steven Wright special, complete with all the commercials.

Added in the gallery below are two shots of the actual videotape we pulled out of the tape to scan.

We hope maybe one day this actually gets produced, so tell the cool guys over at FFF that you would happily shell out the cash for it. Long live analog tape in all its forms! Make sure to check out the detail photos below…