Commentary

The Small Stakes: Big on Old Type

Stephen Coles on September 22, 2007

At last weekend’s Treasure Island Music Festival I met the creator of the event’s charming identity, Jason Munn. Under the name The Small Stakes, Munn is among a young breed of talented music poster designers that includes The Heads of State and longtime Typographica favorites Aesthetic Apparatus.

Treasure Island Music Fest poster Poster by Jason Munn

Munn’s designs are simple and clever, often employing pre-digital type. There is still plenty of rub-down lettering, film fonts, and Dover stuff that hasn’t been digitized, so Munn creates the vectors himself — a trend that is more and more common these days, but not usually executed as well. Any imperfections in the letter outlines are treated kindly by the irregular nature of screen printing.

You can purchase many of Munn’s hand-printed posters at his site for a very reasonable $25 a pop.

LCD Soundsystem Poster by Jason Munn

Deerhoof Poster Poster by Jason Munn

Neko Case Poster by Jason Munn

Q And Not U Poster Poster by Jason Munn

Feist Poster by Jason Munn

9 Comments

Sharon Van Lieu says:

09.22.07 at 11:05 pm

Thanks for the article, Stephen. I’m am so impressed with The Small Stakes’ work: clean, classic and fabulous.

Sharon
sparkling tux says:

09.23.07 at 9:55 am

The “Treasure Island” is great.
Adam Harvey says:

09.23.07 at 11:37 am

Hey I’ve met that guy too. He does fierce work.
Ricardo Cordoba says:

09.25.07 at 12:30 pm

I love these posters; thanks for the article, Stephen!
James Arboghast says:

09.26.07 at 9:24 am

Subtle and excellent. I love Munn’s restrained color sense and use of spaced linear capitals—bold ones at that. The spaceyness helps create the “clean, classic and fabulous” look Sharon points out.

Classicism never dies, it just goes on redefining itself.
Dav(id Hubner) says:

09.30.07 at 12:42 pm

Thanks for mentioning/linking ‘The Small Stakes’. Breathtaking and looovely works. Bookmarked and recommended.
Ken Messenger says:

10.01.07 at 3:43 pm

Jason does great work. I picked up his poster for Matt Pond PA at their Troubadour show a couple years ago. Very nice stuff.
Tiffany says:

10.04.07 at 9:50 am

Great stuff. His poster for Nouvelle Vague is a wonderful ode to Excoffon’s fashion advertising work as well. Lovely, lovely stuff.
Chris says:

02.27.08 at 8:12 am

Sweet posters. Bought 2 of the the other day and I was impressed with the quality of them. Will be buying more!!!