41–45. F2 DESIGN
Dirk Fowler uses granddaddy-era tools—a 1920s Vandercook #1 proof press, hand-cut stamps, and type—to make strikingly fresh poster art. Each hand-pulled print feels stamped with his peculiar wit, energy, and sweat: an immediate classic artifact.

“Keb Mo is well known for wearing a derby hat, and his voice is smooth and melodic, like a little bird. Well, that sounds silly, but there it is,” remarks Fowler. “My concepts aren’t that deep or philosophical; I just try to do something that reaches true fans.” The curves of bird and derby teeter elegantly on high-voltage lettering; red and blue inks cancel each other out to convey a moody, layered black.

Fowler describes the music of Chicago jazz group Vandermark Five as “both hot and cool, really eclectic. Most good jazz has that mellow [feel] with the faster, more agitated stuΩ.” He cut stamps from rubber to make the images and text and used a 1920s-era sign press with an extra-large print bed. Orange and turquoise inks flake the paper like tinsel. “I call those smudges ‘extra art,’” he says.

Fowler likes both down-home classics and real stretches. He places the “Notes from the Underground” poster for the International Society for New and Emerging Artists (ISNEA) in the latter category. The poster promotes sales of an experimental classical music CD recorded in Boston’s Steinart Hall, a near-ruin badly in need of restoration. ISNEA sent Fowler photos of the recording process, which he describes with feeling: “Plaster is falling from the ceiling, there’s a lone Steinway on a tattered stage amid all this high-tech recording equipment—and out of that a big, bold sound comes out, reaching out like a hand,” Fowler recalls. “The idea is stripped down, just like my process. It’s letting the music speak for itself.”

Fowler laughs about his design for the Mates of State poster. “How could you go wrong with a pink moose and squirrel? This image just makes me happy. [The music] is upbeat and pop, and, when you think of the name, a Rocky and Bullwinkle homage works,” he notes.

The designer was humbled by the chance to design Loretta Lynn’s concert poster. “I was raised on her music,” Fowler recalls. “Her collaboration with Jack White of The White Stripes has exposed her to a whole new fan base. I wanted to do a very straightforward design, a classic, so you could just glance and know it was her.” He credits his wife, designer Carol Fowler, with the idea to add the tuning pegs. Jude Stewart