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Rock Poster Art: Dan Stiles on Fillmore Street in SF
I'm ashamed to admit that I had never heard of Dan Stiles before checking out a recent exhibition on Fillmore Street here in San Francisco. Upon getting invited, instead of blatantly admitting my ignorance by asking, "Who is Dan Stiles???," I did a little research on him. I was surprised to learn that he is the artist of some of the craziest and innovative rock posters. He has designed posters for some great bands including Wilco, Sonic Youth, the Klaxons, Ted Leo, Bright Eyes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Feist, Rogue Wave, the Decemberists, TV on the Radio, Ween and the Arctic Monkeys to name a few.
He kicked off his presentation by walking through a brief history of rock poster art from the days of Elvis through the psychedelic-infused art of the Fillmore posters, through the DIY posters of hardcore bands like Black Flag and the Circle Jerks. It was really wild to see how artists borrowed (and in some cases, blatantly stole) ideas from other artists and how concepts evolved over time. What was that John Lennon quote??? He also spent a lot of time going through his own development as an artist and how he came up with basic ideas that evolved into his finished pieces. Once again, I'm subjecting you to my crappy photography skills from my phone, but here's a slide he showed where he reviewed the genesis of a poster for Sonic Youth.
It might be tough to see the "exploding brains" coming out of the character's ears
Here are two other prints that I ended up adding to my collection...
Here's one he did for the Klaxons
And another for Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
He then went on to review the 4 "Cs" that he tries to think about when putting together his work:
Concept
Composition
Color
Compelling
He said the last one is always the most difficult to achieve, but one that keeps him inspired. He also joked that he came up with this explanatory "bullshit" since he had to put together a presentation. Nonetheless, it is clear that he takes his work seriously. In his design process, he has a certain "Howard Roark" element to his work as he refuses to compromise his artistic vision by pandering to his clients' wishes. "They either like it or not. There's no moving this or that or changing the color..." I respect that and it's clear to me that his approach has yielded great results. I had a chance to chat with him briefly afterwards and he clearly is a passionate music fan as well. His work may not be for everyone, but I really like what he does and I hope to see more of his work in the future.
You can see more of his posters at http://www.danstiles.com/1.html.
His last slide of the night read, "Good is the enemy of great." Voltaire
He kicked off his presentation by walking through a brief history of rock poster art from the days of Elvis through the psychedelic-infused art of the Fillmore posters, through the DIY posters of hardcore bands like Black Flag and the Circle Jerks. It was really wild to see how artists borrowed (and in some cases, blatantly stole) ideas from other artists and how concepts evolved over time. What was that John Lennon quote??? He also spent a lot of time going through his own development as an artist and how he came up with basic ideas that evolved into his finished pieces. Once again, I'm subjecting you to my crappy photography skills from my phone, but here's a slide he showed where he reviewed the genesis of a poster for Sonic Youth.
It might be tough to see the "exploding brains" coming out of the character's ears
Here are two other prints that I ended up adding to my collection...
Here's one he did for the Klaxons
And another for Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
He then went on to review the 4 "Cs" that he tries to think about when putting together his work:
Concept
Composition
Color
Compelling
He said the last one is always the most difficult to achieve, but one that keeps him inspired. He also joked that he came up with this explanatory "bullshit" since he had to put together a presentation. Nonetheless, it is clear that he takes his work seriously. In his design process, he has a certain "Howard Roark" element to his work as he refuses to compromise his artistic vision by pandering to his clients' wishes. "They either like it or not. There's no moving this or that or changing the color..." I respect that and it's clear to me that his approach has yielded great results. I had a chance to chat with him briefly afterwards and he clearly is a passionate music fan as well. His work may not be for everyone, but I really like what he does and I hope to see more of his work in the future.
You can see more of his posters at http://www.danstiles.com/1.html.
His last slide of the night read, "Good is the enemy of great." Voltaire
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