Thursday, December 9, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Advertising Downtown
Olympia Washington is alive with creative vocals and new music. Posters and flyers for emerging bands cover the fronts of stores and brick walls. Many stores willingly put the advertisements up in their shops or on their community board.
A window of posters in Downtown Olympia.
Most of these posters have a handmade quality. The images look as though they’re drawn by hand and the poster could be constructed in one of Microsoft’s many publishing programs. The quality, though, has not suffered. Instead, the ingenuity of the creator shines through with the uneven lines from the pen, or the simplicity of the poster.
Community Print's press.
Some of these posters may have been the result of artists, both musical and paint, putting pen to paper and coming up with an eye-catching poster. Or they could have paid a visit to Olympia’s Community Print. Community Print is a local letterpressing and silkscreening shop nestled in Olympia’s busy streets. It is elusive. Not much information is available on the internet and the advertising is minimal. It lacks a website, only having a modest Myspace account which hasn't been updated in a year. Most information on Community Print consits of articles or blog entries dating from 2009 at the latest.
Community Print is located in the back of Dumpster Values. It looks as though it’s fallen out of use, but is still alive and well. It has all the potential to be incredibly useful if it were only in the spotlight more. With its wide array of options in fonts and letterhead and the amount of time it takes, Community Print should be out in the public eye more often than it is.
Some of the available fonts for use at Community Print
Most of the posters cover walls on Fourth Avenue. Particularly, the older, or attitude laden parts of Downtown Olympia are the areas of focus. Some can be found on theaters, but most are on music shops, tattoo parlors, and thrift stores that line Fourth and Fifth Avenue.
Rainy Day Records is one such store. Also it is quite unique for its display. Not only is there flyers of varying colors on the windows, but an entire wall is dedicated solely to the posters of local bands.
Back wall at Rainy Day Records.
Olympia fully embraces its budding bands and the bands willingly leap at the opportunities the city presents them with.
A window of posters in Downtown Olympia.Most of these posters have a handmade quality. The images look as though they’re drawn by hand and the poster could be constructed in one of Microsoft’s many publishing programs. The quality, though, has not suffered. Instead, the ingenuity of the creator shines through with the uneven lines from the pen, or the simplicity of the poster.
Community Print's press.Some of these posters may have been the result of artists, both musical and paint, putting pen to paper and coming up with an eye-catching poster. Or they could have paid a visit to Olympia’s Community Print. Community Print is a local letterpressing and silkscreening shop nestled in Olympia’s busy streets. It is elusive. Not much information is available on the internet and the advertising is minimal. It lacks a website, only having a modest Myspace account which hasn't been updated in a year. Most information on Community Print consits of articles or blog entries dating from 2009 at the latest.
Community Print is located in the back of Dumpster Values. It looks as though it’s fallen out of use, but is still alive and well. It has all the potential to be incredibly useful if it were only in the spotlight more. With its wide array of options in fonts and letterhead and the amount of time it takes, Community Print should be out in the public eye more often than it is.
Some of the available fonts for use at Community PrintRainy Day Records is one such store. Also it is quite unique for its display. Not only is there flyers of varying colors on the windows, but an entire wall is dedicated solely to the posters of local bands.
Back wall at Rainy Day Records.Olympia fully embraces its budding bands and the bands willingly leap at the opportunities the city presents them with.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)