Photograph of Jay Ryan in his studio by Eric Nakamura
The fifth CreativeMornings event in Chicago was a celebration of print. At the Chicago Portfolio School, who sponsored the event, The Bird Machine’s Jay Ryan showed his screen-printed work. Results were not only viewed—Ryan also shared his poster-making process, from drawing to final composition. It’s a messy sequence involving rubylith, X-Acto blades, lamps, inks, tape—a host of timeless tools. Each step takes time and is worth the wait, because the results are hard-earned demonstrations of artistic intent. The effect is relationship-building. Each poster that Ryan showed is a piece of a universe, where one can relate to a walrus peering from the sky, a school of wombats or a herd depicted as a cave painting. Ryan’s portfolio and narrative served up a hearty dish of magical realism, with tactical-magical advice:
I left the fifth CreativeMornings presentation motivated in a tangible way, wanting to make something tactile. And as I walked back to the office, squirrels were climbing skyscrapers and windows were blinking.
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Big thanks to organizer Mig Reyes, videographers Craig Shimala and Charlie Curran, photographers Chris Gallevo and Rosario Edwards for their great work on making CreativeMornings happen in Chicago.
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Typeface of quotes is called Massive designed by Shawn Hazen, who also makes awesome typographic illustrations for series Creative Roles.
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Read CreativeMornings-related posts:
- “Make or else”: Chicago CreativeMornings
with Jake Nickell of Threadless - Thinker-Makers Unite: Chicago CreativeMornings
with Digital Kitchen - “It’s simple until you make it complicated”: CreativeMornings
in Chicago with Jason Fried of 37signals - Design Conference Reworked and Reloaded: CreativeMornings
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