Hume-Fogg 100th Anniversary Print

1912 must have been an exciting year! This 100th anniversary poster for Hume-Fogg High School will be the 3rd 100th anniversary poster we've done in recent months (the other centennials will be celebrated by The Girl Scouts and East Nashville's Shelby Park).

We had wanted to create a Hume-Fogg poster for a long time, and though we’d had a few requests over the years, we weren't sure if there was a large enough audience for it. Boy, were we wrong! Over the last few months the Hume-Fogg Alumni Association gathered support by pre-selling over 400 prints. With that sort of interest in the print, we were happy to oblige. Staff designer/illustrator Andy Gregg was put on the case, and below is his process from start to finish.

This was the initial concept thumbnail. The Victorian/Edwardian style was chosen as the base aesthetic of the poster because it was popular at the time of Hume-Fogg's founding, and fit somewhat with the Tudor Revival style of the school building.  Originally, just a sword was placed beneath the type as a nod to the the Blue Knight mascot.

This was the second thumbnail produced. Our contacts at Hume-Fogg wanted Hume-Fogg's old and new mascots added to the composition, so the poster would appeal to both old alumni—who identify as Blue Devils, and new—who are known as the Blue Knights. The dates 1912-2012 were added and the composition was fleshed-out more. A clean outer border was added to counteract the overwrought nature of the chosen Edwardian style.

Eventually the composition was ready for its final iteration. Andy enjoys the boring minutia of type design, and thus created all of the lettering from scratch. He also started drawing the Hume-Fogg building from reference photography he shot. Because of these two facts, this poster was possibly the design that took the most man hours to complete of any poster in the history of ADG. We fear Andy may have temporarily lost feeling in his clicking fingers and permanently lost part of his soul.

See the lack of luster in his eyes? That luster is now in the poster.

It was well worth it though, as the response we have gotten has been tremendous. Andy even signed a limited number of 50 for a select few alumni. For those who didn't pre-order a print through the Alumni Association: don't fret. We have about 150 extra prints for sale here at ADG in our studio store. Each print sells for $39. Stop by, pick up a print and say hi!

NEW Classic Chicago Posters

Our Art & Soul Of America Collection of prints and gifts continues to grow. Thanks to Fab.com, Pinterest, and other cool design-oriented sites, folks from all over the world have been checking out our work, buying our prints, and decorating homes and offices in classic Chicago style. Spurred on by the success of our early Chicago concepts, we have expanded our collection of Windy City prints to 9 designs. We will keep adding new art as inspiration and demand dictates!

The first few designs were by Andy Gregg and Luke Howard working under the direction of Joel Anderson, the creator of the Art & Soul of America Collection. More recent Chicago prints by Andy Gregg, Julian Baker and Shelby Roddefer have helped to expand the series and bring even more variety to the line. For example, Andy was inspired by the 1960s-era travel posters published by TWA. So he created a beautiful Buckingham Fountain design that leans more toward modern design than his popular Deco-era Chicago Theatre or Magnificent Mile prints. Below is a row of TWA posters that inspired his Buckingham Fountain creation (featured under the TWA designs):

Below are examples of the period range our Chicago designs have covered—from Julian Baker’s early 20th century Water Tower design to Shelby Roddifer’s contemporary 21st century Cloud Gate design.

 

So far, this Deco-style design by Luke Howard has been the best-selling print in the collection. Our 6-piece set of vinyl magnets has become a popular stocking stuffer item for the holidays!

Stay tuned to see how our other lines are coming along. New York and San Francisco are also becoming very popular print series, too. They can be seen at our ArtAndSoulOfAmerica.com site.