FullBleed

John Foster’s involved in a lot that absorbs his time and creativity – including sadcrocodile and brightestyoungthings – yet he still manages to create posters among his other musical and writing gigs. After attending a poster show he created that was humorously titled, “Hair in Unfortunate Places,” we asked him to give us a little insight into his crafts.

Lucky for FullBleed, he obliged.

You’ve got many other things going on, but the poster seems to be a big love of yours.  Why?

What’s not to love? It is, in most cases, the largest canvas a designer has to work with, and the areas that benefit the most from its application are generally more creative endeavors … from the arts to retail. I think the poster has a romantic attachment for me as well; virtually all of my favorite design solutions have occurred as posters. Working big is a challenge and it brings out the best in people – and me. I go out of my way to make sure that I have posters to work several times a year just to keep me sane!

Talk a bit about your technique. I imagine a room at the Foster estate filled with a screen printer and ink all over the floor and one-off poster all over the walls.

Not the case at all! My wife owns all the real estate in my house! I have never committed to having all of those chemicals around. My strength is in the design, and I like turning over the project to someone whose strength is the printing aspect. I use a couple shops to print those pieces. However, I am a big believer in having your creative tools available, so I may seem a little messy.

What kind of poster project is your favorite and why?

I am a black cloud about whatever I am working on. I only see the missed opportunities and every detail I wish I could noodle or tweak. It’s a terrible way of working. So my favorite poster project is always something that I have done in the past and have now idealized with a romantic memory eraser.

Is the poster, other than the movie poster, a dying art form?  For example, I used to have a huge U2 Joshua Tree concert poster from the Dublin show, I think.  Where are these now?  Are they still made?

The poster has changed and adapted. In a lot of ways, it is just as vital an application as ever. That was a big reason why I wrote New Masters of Poster Design. It wasn’t just an underground design movement reaching the masses — although that was important — but it was about major global retailers’ adoption of the poster as their main source of messaging. You don’t realize it because you encounter them in different ways than in the past, but Target and Starbucks and many others have posters everywhere in their stores. In a lot ways, point-of-purchase has morphed into more subtle forms, and the poster has taken up that real estate with brand reinforcement and specific messaging.

Concert posters are more or less gone. Record companies are still trying to figure out ways to monetize music in this digital age, and old school promo materials were axed years ago. Those were generally made to hang or sell in record stores. Even if the labels were inclined to produce them — which they aren’t — they wouldn’t have anywhere to distribute them. However, the limited edition gig poster has emerged. Pearl Jam, Wilco, Interpol, Dave Matthews Band, and many others use the gig poster as a major source of revenue now. Why buy a tour t-shirt when you can own a poster specific to the show you attended and know that only 50-100 others have the same item?

Speaking of limited editions, I was drawn to a Hurricane Katrina poster you did recently — particularly because I’m from Baton Rouge.  Wasn’t your Katrina poster at the most recent show done as part of a larger project?

Yes. It was for the Hurricane Poster Project, which was organized by Leif Steiner, and I was honored to be one of the first wave of designers asked to participate. We all donated limited editions of our prints, which were sold with all of the proceeds going to the American Red Cross and their efforts post-Hurricane Katrina.

If you ever do another run of the Katrina poster, I have first dibs.

My final print went for $1,000, and one of the prints hangs in the Louisiana Statehouse. Unfortunately, that means none for sale in the future – at least not from me.

Are there any other charity/cause projects for whom you have done work?

I participated in the So-Cal Fire Project, which was directly inspired the Hurricane Poster Project, and done with their blessing. And I had my poster presented to San Diego reporter Larry Himmel, whose reporting on the burning of his own home inspired my piece. Both projects have been incredibly rewarding to work on.

You also create music and write. Where do you find the time to give every artistic outlet the attention it deserves?  I mean, I love photographing, but sometimes I just have to walk away — even if I’m being dragged away by a two year old.

It’s not always easy. I have a little girl who comes first now no matter what, but I have to remind myself of that at times. “Real” work always takes precedence. But having a poster or something kicking around that has a looser timeline or client restrictions that allows me to still keep my chops up.

The music and the writing come very quickly and naturally to me, so I don’t spend nearly as much time on them as it might seem. However, I have found that I truly need them as they serve a different kind of outlet and, most importantly, in that they make me nervous. My comfort zone is so tiny in both areas, compared to anything else in my life. I can talk about design to 1,500 people I have never met and not blink an eye, but playing a song to a room with 7 people in it puts such a ball in my stomach that it isn’t even funny. I highly recommend that people have something in their life that makes them uncomfortable!

What music inspires you – or, maybe better, what’s on your ipod?

I play this interview game with musicians at brightestyoungthings on occasion — I lifted the game called ipod shuffle from The Vinyl District. You randomly select the first five tracks on your ipod, thereby revealing yourself as an unbearable hipster with totally obscure music or someone harboring a cache of New Kids on the Block. It’s such an open-ended question. Ok here we go:

1. De La Soul, “Potholes in My Lawn” – Can’t go wrong with some breezy daisy age hip-hop.
2. Morrissey, “Tomorrow” – Huge Smiths fan and this is one of my favorite solo Morrissey tracks. No one can sing lyrics like he can and make me sing along at the top of my lungs. “You don’t think I’ll make it – I never said I wanted to – now did I?”
3. The Colourfield, “Pushing Up Daisies” – Terry Hall from The Specials in his beat combo mode. Great, great song. Would go nicely in any mix with “Tomorrow” that just played.
4. Air Miami, “I Hate Milk” – Nervy post punk from Teenbeat label head Mark Robinson in his band following the demise of the mighty Unrest. I lived a few blocks away from the Teenbeat house in Arlington when I got out of college, and Mark and I have since become good friends. It is worth noting that he is an incredible self-taught designer.
5. The Notwist, “Good Lies” – Moody glitch pop with driving guitars and deceiving simplicity. I especially love these Germans when they get quiet. This is on the new one, “The Devil, You + Me,” but the record to get from them is the amazing “Neon Golden.” A must have.

John shared several other groups he encourages everyone to have – including Kings of Convenience and James Brown, among others. But when he mentioned that he has 45 tracks under MC Hammer, we decided it was time to close the interview.

Thanks to John for opening up. Check out his work at sadcrocodile and brightestyoungthings.