46. ASTERIK STUDIO, INC.
“Poison the Well is a pretty heavy-metal sort of band; typically, the poster designs for these bands don’t get represented well in terms of artwork,” notes Don Clark, designer and one of the founders of Asterik Studio. “I wanted to keep an edge to this—make something simple and humorous, not full of snakes and skulls and stuff.”

Clark found the loping, cartoonish body first in a collection of 1940s advertising illustrations. Cadging together the crude figure with a silhouetted, half-toned head reminiscent of a $50 bill, he linked the two images with gnashing, metallic teeth. “I was left with the hands, so I thought, ‘Well, it’s a metal band—put a gun in them!’” Clark laughs. Delicate angel’s wings, an ornate scroll detail, and some Futura Bold text at the bottom round out the balance between menace, edginess, and wit. Clark prefers to silkscreen his posters, extending the cut-and-paste quality of his designs through to production. As he remarks: “When you’re done designing, someone else works just as hard to print it. It means something extra.” Jude Stewart