76 AESTHETIC APPARATUS
“Rob Jones, an Austin poster artist who has a close professional relationship with The Alamo Drafthouse that produces the Rolling Roadshow tour, commissioned many poster artists to create work for the tour,” explains Dan Ibarra of Minneapolis-based Aesthetic Apparatus. “The Alamo Drafthouse has an amazing ability to think about their theater and film screenings as events unto themselves. With that, they have constantly reimagined the idea of film going. It’s an honor to be associated with such a creative company.”

In their first year working with the Rolling Roadshow, Dan Ibarra and Michael Byzewski, partners at Aesthetic Apparatus, created a poster for one of the show’s screenings, Once Upon a Time in the West. For the second year, Aesthetic Apparatus designed a poster for the movie The Shining. “The Shining was going to be screened in the hotel where Stephen King wrote the original book,” continues Ibarra. “Although the film was shot in a different hotel, we knew that the poster had to build off the role of hotel architecture in the film in some manner. We chose one of the creepiest moments of the film—the first time you see the ghosts of the twin sisters at the end of one of the hotel’s long hallways. Allusions to the literal interpretation of the title and of other notable moments where blood floods out of the hotel elevators and down the halls were also illustrated mostly with color in the type and texture along the bottom of the poster.”

With a must-touch texture, The Shining poster shimmers, and only as it moves can you see the complete picture revealed— providing an unexpected twist not unlike those that Stephen King’s stories are known for. by Tami Terrel