Gruff Rhys

Attached is a poster I did (not for commission or anything, just because I wanted to) as a kind of homage to Gruff Rhys (he of Super Furry Animals) and in particular to the great gig he did back in July 2011 at the Harrogate Theatre.

The image of Gruff himself began as an illustration taken from one of his 'Hotel Shampoo' press pictures, although I wanted to change the hairdryer that he originally holds for something that is unequivocally Harrogate. Hence the Betty's teacup. Because of the rather unpredictable and off-the-wall nature of his gig, I wanted a font that was also a bit different and I quite liked the odd, handmade nature of the these ones.

It was a really enjoyable bit of design to work on, and I do love gig posters - I mean proper, artistically driven ones for individual gigs, rather than mass produced, available-anywhere ones. You rarely see them in the UK, certainly not to the extent that some venues in the US do (Fillmore in San Fransisco for instance). There is a Bristol based company called Jacknife that does some great ones http://www.jacknifeposters.co.uk/, in fact I own a limited edition print they did of Blur's Glastonbury gig from 2009. If anyone knows of other UK based artists that create them, I'd be interested to hear more.

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