about: SARA & BRIAN TURNER

Since 2003: Cricket Press is a little operation geared towards designing and hand printing silk-screened and letterpress posters for music events, art shows, propaganda, and basically anything. We especially love doing gig posters for punk, indie-rock, jazz and improvised music events. Reason being, this is just the music we love, and the people we love to work with.

We also do a variety of freelance illustration and graphic design work; including but not limited to card sets, invitations, announcements…you name it. All our work is designed and illustrated by us: Sara & Brian Turner.

Tell us about your unique creative style/ approach
There are several ways we go about creating the art for our posters. In most cases the band and/or venue trust and like our style/aesthetic enough to let us do our own thing. These are the jobs we especially enjoy. We take inspiration from the given band’s song lyrics, album themes, and general sound to come up with a poster idea. Other times a band will hire us and have an exact idea in mind they want us to translate into our style of art. Having an extensive portfolio of posters for bands and fans to see means we aren’t hired to replicate someone else’s style. We are hired for ours.

Our posters are primarily screen printed, although we do employ the letterpress process from time to time. We use pencil and ink to create an illustration that we think fits the band or the event. Once we have the artwork finalized, we use a combination of traditional film separating techniques (rubylith) and computers (Photoshop, inkjet film) to make our individual screens for each color. All of our posters are pulled by hand.

A great print artist/ illustrator is…..
Always driven to do their best and ready to dedicate themselves to a lifestyle of making art.

Where are you located?
Lexington, Kentucky

How do you promote/ showcase your work?
There are a number of different ways we showcase our work. First of all, the nature of a gigposter is that it’s used out on the street, in windows and around towns. It’s a highly accessible form of art. Every time we get hired to create an event poster…we’re essentially advertising our services.  We partake in a number of art exhibits each year. Whether we are being invited or if we’re organizing the event…we like to showcase our work in galleries, art fairs and during artistic events.

We’re members of the American Poster Institute. The API is like a guild, in that poster artists who are deemed “accredited professionals” in the field can join and pay an annual fee to become members and to get further involved in the world of poster art. The API funds numerous gig poster conventions, called Flatstocks. These are held across the US and Europe in conjunction with several major music festivals. We attend two of the four annual Flatstocks and that gives us an opportunity to not only show our work to a larger audience, but also we get to hang out with many of our other poster artist friends from around the world.

We also showcase/promote our work online in the form of our website (www.cricket-press.com), an Etsy store (cricketpress.etsy.com), and through networking sites like Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.

The site gigposters.com is also a very, very valuable resource. The site allows each artist to showcase their own portfolio of posters. Their, you can receive critiques from your peers, gain valuable information on your profession, partake in event, and socialize within the community!

What do you think about the Internet affecting the way of global communication 5 years from now?
Sara: I couldn’t have predicted the popularity and the power of networking sites 5 years ago…so, I have no idea where 5 more years will take us. I can say that a good portion of our work comes from our website and our internet presence and almost ALL of our communications with clients is done over email alone.

Brian: Well, it has certainly connected the world in ways I never would’ve thought possible 5 years ago. Despite the fact that you can easily communicate and even collaborate with people around the globe, I predict that it will actually make local communities a lot stronger by allowing people to connect with those around them to make their cities better, more interesting places to live. I know I have seen this happen here in Lexington in just the past year.

I am driven to…..
Sara: Make art everyday and continue to challenge myself creatively…to always be productive.

Brian: Create things that not only satisfy my own creative impulses, but also make people stop, look and ponder something just a bit longer. If something I have created sparks some degree of inspiration, or wonder or amusement in someone else, then that moves it on to another place where it is not just a purely self-indulgent act. I’ve always liked the thought of art interacting with the world around it, no matter the scale.

Could you share any insight for people just entering the profession?
The best way to “break into the scene” is to start doing posters for friends bands. If you do not know anyone in a band…get in touch with local bands from your area or venues in your area. There is some etiquette to the gigposter scene…and you can learn a lot at gigposters.com. It’s an excellent resource for anyone wanting to learn more about making gigposters. It’s covers tips from screenprinting to the proper dos and don’ts of the scene.

We started the exact way I described above…by doing posters for friends bands and creating relationships with venues in our area. We still mostly create posters for regional shows…but eventually received the attention of other venues across the country and receive requests directly from bands themselves. You can contact the bands directly, but remember to always receive permission to do a poster and be aware of gigposter artists in other areas you might be stepping on the toes of. We never do posters for highly popular bands unless they approach us directly…it’s the only way to make sure everything is legit and the band and (most importantly) their management is totally on board.

There is a great gig poster community out there, and it’s larger and more tight-knit than many would expect. We first discovered it online at gigposters.com which is a fabulous resource for anyone who wants to know more about screen printing and the ethics of making posters. The site also offers every artist space to post their work into online portfolios, giving them exposure and allowing peer critiques. We’ve befriended many other gig poster artists through the site.

If you were not a print artist/ illustrator, what would be the alternative career path you choose?
Sara: I’ve always been an artists…ever since I was a child. I don’t know how to be anything else. If I wasn’t an illustrator/printer…I’d be making art in some other medium. In the years before starting Cricket Press I’ve created art in photography, woodworking, writing, and mixed media.

Brian: I’ve always been fond of all things dealing with maps, directions and geography. I’m lucky enough to know a few cartographers, and I often find myself envious of the work they do. I could definitely see myself involved in something along those lines if it weren’t for my own creative path.

What do you like the smell of?
Sara: Coffee every morning, beer on a Friday night, fruity chapsticks, breakfast on a Saturday morning, and wood burning on chilly evenings. Basically anything being prepared in my kitchen or that reminds me of home!

Brian: The smell of fresh roasted coffee beans would top my list. It reminds me of the start of every single day and what lays ahead. I also love the smell of a fine Kentucky bourbon, because it always reminds me of the place I come from.

If you have online portfolio (website/awards/credits/client’s showcase), what is the URL?
http://www.cricket-press.com
cricketpress.etsy.com
http://www.gigposters.com/designer/16368_Brian_Turner.html
http://www.gigposters.com/designer/19590_Sara_Turner.html

We’re also featured artists in the publications:

• Gig Posters Volume I: Rock Show Art of the 21st Century (published by Chronicle Books)
• Art of Modern Rock: Poster Girls (published by Chronicle Books)
• The Hand-Printed Art of Cricket Press (coming soon)

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