One of design’s purest forms.
Perhaps it’s the tight constraints: A poster must contain a singular image and strong typography. It must make an iconic statement. It must be read from a distance—and when a viewer is inches away.
We’ve made many posters during our nearly three decades. Over 150 reside in the permanent collections of the international poster museum, which is based in Switzerland and called Plakatsammlung Museum fur Gestaltung Zürich, along with Poster House in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and others. A sampling is below.
PDX Music Memory
Printed as a 24 x 36″ folded insert in Plazm magazine, issue 29. This side designed by Linda Reynen; the reverse features photographs by Thomas Robinson. The poster can be purchased here.
Portland 2010. Brand identity, advertising, catalogue design, and posters were part of our work for the Portland Biennial.
Laika launch
This poster in a tube was used to announce the name change of Vinton Studios to LAIKA. We made it a game; the poster arrived in a tube with a small pencil to connect other famous name changes. View case study
All Cotton Club
A series of hand drawn type posters for a Nike basketball “city attack” campaign specific to NYC. The designs reference jazz posters of the Cotton Club era.
Portland Center Stage
Rebrand & poster campaign
Like the city itself, the largest, longest-running theatre company in Portland was on the brink of a new era. Portland Center Stage worked with Plazm to rebrand and create posters for two seasons of compelling theater. Like the city itself, the largest, longest-running theatre company in Portland was on the brink of a new era. Portland Center Stage worked with Plazm to rebrand and create posters for two seasons of compelling theater. Two of the many posters are shown below.
Northwest Film Center
Posters, video, advertising
Since 1971, Northwest Film Center has played a vital role in Portland’s evolving arts community. The organization’s annual festival of filmmaking invited Plazm to design film posters and make movie trailers on numerous occasions, two posters are shown below. Full case study
Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls
Strategy, branding, marketing, advertising
Social and media pressure on girls and young women can be overwhelming. Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls offers a powerful antidote. Through music and performance, girls find their voices, their confidence, and their self-esteem.
Plazm helped Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls transition from a small, founder-focused group to a larger and more inclusive organization—one that spawned a global movement. Plazm principal Joshua Berger also spent five years on the Board of Directors. View case study
Two-color screen print for Girls Rock The Movie! A documentary about the Rock & Roll Camp for Girls.
Red Bull Theater
See me, hear me. Two posters from an off-Broadway season of Red Bull Theater in New York City. See more of our work for Red Bull.
Supersize
Japanese magazine IDEA, commissioned us to create something for “Made In America”— their issue focused on American design. We did that and liked it so much we made a 2-sided poster out of it.
Through cultural imperialism, America exports guns and gun violence to the rest of the world in movies and other “entertainment” delivery systems—America is perceived, especially in Japan, as a violent place. Our more pernicious and deadly import, however, is fast food. The corporations who create markets for beef, dairy and fried food, particularly in cultures who previously relied on sustainable and healthful nutrition, shoot straight to the heart. The Japanese word for “Supersize” is “Supersize”.
Posters for Nike World Cup 2002
Film posters
We’ve done a number of movie posters, ranging from small independent films to Hollywood blockbusters. Slamnation, the poster on the left documents the National Poetry Slam, which we also did a poster for with a graphic flaming microphone, for the film we lit one on fire and shot it. Love Etc. follows five love stories in New York City. Men In Black II from Columbia TriStar on the left and Power Trip, a documentary by Paul Devlin on Electricity in the Republic of Georgia.
TriMet Retrospective series
TriMet often commissions public art to enhance physical locations around the city. We built on this by commissioning a series of commemorative artworks for each separate line of the MAX light rail system. The works themselves were made for a display at the national transportation conference and are now displayed in the lobby of TriMet’s Portland headquarters. Additionally, they were photographed for use in commemorative posters and public advertising campaigns. See more TriMet work in the case study
PNCA
Two of the many event posters we have done for the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Tokyo Design Revolution event poster and Art Chantry event poster with matchbook (below). Part of our design, branding, and strategic thinking for the Pacific Northwest College of Art. View case study
Music & event posters
Poster for Muslimguaze release, extension of the CD packaging. This is one of a half dozen releases we have done for this artist. In this case we were honored to collaborate with Shirin Neshat.
Poster for Alan Jones Sextet. They titled their release “Unsafe” so we developed a minimal warning label safety package for their CD, then bought some haz-mat suits for the band to wear on this photo shoot. Photograph by Lars Topelman. We’ve done multiple projects for Alan Jones including branding his music school. We also created the Regeneration poster below.
Screen printed poster for an Experience Music Project branding assignment. A collaboration with Eric W. Mast.
Event poster for our friend Jeff Faulkner’s talk at Design Speaks in Portland.
Event poster for New Oregon Arts & Letters
Poster and CD packaging for Sarah Dougher’s The Bluff on Mr. Lady Records.
Event poster for Performanceworks Northwest
Plazm posters
Posters from early Plazm days (1991-1994). We put together many live events as part of Plazm magazine. Later, as we evolved, we got more ambitious and started screen printing larger format posters to announce events and new releases of the magazine.
Four color screen print to promote our coloring book project. The 32 page coloring book was inserted in Plazm 16. We printed large format versions of the pages and party-goers colored them in with provided crayons.
Plazm 16 poster by David Carson. David also did the cover and an interior spread in the issue.
Release party for Plazm Farmhouse Ale at Holocene, design by Eric W. Mast (left). Plazm 15th anniversary party, illustration by Andrew Marshall.
After issue 12 we received a letter from our international distributor that our magazine had been banned in Singapore. We figured we should let people know. So for issue 13 we put the information on the cover. Donjiro Ban contributed this design, which was screen printed at letterpressed at Crack Press. A few of these are available as part of the collector’s edition of issue 13.
Plazm 25 screen printed poster designed by Pablo Medina, available here. Shop Talk with Plazm was a poster for our first ever public lecture, for AIGA Portland, circa 1995. A few copies still available here.
Early call to submit posters for Plazm magazine.
Two early Plazm Fonts posters, left featuring Elliot Earls Subluxation typeface, right featuring Christian Küsters’s Retrospecta font.
Plazm 20th anniversary poster (left) designed by Bijan Berahimi, poster for SAIC Plazm workshop and lecture by Niko Courtelis (right).
Two Design Week Portland posters, left design by Bijan Berahimi for a Plazm exhibition at Liquid Space, right design by David Carson for the Plazm event at Wieden+Kennedy “Never Snap2Guides.”