Oakland-based Jason Munn, who designs under the name the Small Stakes, is a genius. He designs show and tour posters with simple but amazingly apt and effective designs. I always love his posters and buy them every time I see one at a show that I go to. (I now have 9: Ben Gibbard/ David Bazan, Sufjan Stevens, Pat Sturgeon Benefit, Mates of State, Jose Gonzalez, Mark Kozelek, Rogue Wave, American Analog Set and Tsunami Relief.) You can check out his posters at his website and also at gigposters. I’ve also run into him at / written about him after Flatstock 10.

I asked Jason to put together a short mix and asked him a few questions.

The mix:
Jason says: “I’ve got some 5 songs for you. Somewhat random, but I had a look at my iTunes to see what the top played songs and bands were.”

American Analog Set - Choir Vandals (mp3)

Lungfish - To Whom You Were Born (mp3)

Contantines - Lizaveta (mp3)

The National - Slow Show (mp3)

Castanets - A Song Is Not the Song of the World (mp3)

The interview: [All links added by me]

How did you get into this?
I moved to Oakland from Wisconsin almost 5 years ago. Before I moved I was working in a small design studio and doing some side projects like album packaging and t-shirts for friends of mine in bands. When I moved out here I had a couple of short term jobs at design studios or ad agencies, but it was a pretty slow time for everyone so I wasn’t working much. Around this time some friends of mine started booking shows at The Ramp - an all ages venue in Berkeley. They asked me to do a poster to promote each show - which was once a month. Really great shows and I met a lot of people at these shows that I still do work for today.

What was your first show poster?
There were a couple that I consider my first two since I was working and printing them at the same time. One for Pedro the Lion at Great American Music Hall and Damien Jurado at Bottom of the Hill.

Are you a musician?
Not at all. I can play a little on the guitar, but definitely not anything to write home about.

Who hires you for jobs? I’ve seen posters for tours and posters for individual shows, leading me to believe that it’s sometimes clubs, sometimes bands.
Most of the time for me it is through bands or management. Occasionally through the venue or a combination of both.

Does the client have any influence on the design?
Most of the time the bands are pretty hands off about it, but I’m always really trying to make something that is appropriate for the band and not just me doing whatever I feel like. It needs to tie in. They are approved so if a band feels I’m way off I’ll try something else.

Take us briefly through the design process for a poster.
A lot of sketching at first. If I’m not really familiar with the band I’m doing some listening and research on them. Once I have an idea I start in on it. Most of the layout and everything is done in Illustrator, but I’m usually basing it off of a sketch I’ve done and scanned in.

Do you design posters based on some fundamental design principles or do you take each one on a case-by-case basis?
It’s definitely a case-by-case, but there are definitely aesthetics that I gravitate towards. The bands drive the posters quite a bit though.

Who do you admire as far as graphics go? Who has influenced you the most?
There is quite a few people, most who have or still work doing design in the music world. Peter Saville being a big one, he designed the Factory Records albums. Jeff Kleinsmith being another - he’s the art director at Sub Pop. He’s designed quite a few records that I own.

It seems your most common non-musical design element is the heart (two Mates of State posters, and posters for American Analog Set, Camera Obscura, Nada Surf, Rainer Maria, if not more). Is there a reason for this? Just that a lot of indie rock songs are love songs?
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that heart symbol is pretty universal and I’m a sucker for symbols that are bold and universal and it does fit a lot of the bands pretty well.

Do you have a favorite poster that you’ve done? Or a top five?
I like the couple of posters I’ve done for The Books quite a bit. The first one I did for them may be my favorite poster I’ve done. I tend to like the newer posters more than the older ones, but sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised when I see one of the older prints that I haven’t seen for awhile. Most of the time though I think of what I would have done differently.

if you were playing a show or promoting a show and couldn’t make the poster yourself, who would you ask?
Dirk Fowler, he’s a poster designer from Lubbock, Texas. He’s made a few of my all time favorite posters.

And the one that’s going to win me the investigative journalism prize: why are posters 2.5 times as much on your website than at shows? (You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want.)
By the time they are on my site there are not many available. I think it’s a really fair price for a limited edition print.

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And there you have it. You can buy Small Stakes posters at many shows and at the poster store at the Small Stakes website.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 12:40 am Posted by adrian in SF bay area, interview, marginally related to music. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.