Interview: Rock Artist, John Howard

From Runaway Dinosaur, an interview with John Howard, who does poster designs for the Great American Music Hall, the Fillmore, the Warfield, and Bill Graham Presents. Excerpts below, full interview at Runaway Dinosaur.

What’s it like working with BGP? How often do they commission you for posters? Are you able to choose which acts you design for?

Working with BGP is cool because of their history and the fact that they take care of everything… you just send them the art and get paid. But that can also be a downside because you don’t get to work with the band/management, control the printing, or own the final art.

How do you get the 3-D effect with the silkscreen process?

The theory is simple. When viewing the image with red/blue glasses, the red lens shows the blue dot as black and the red dot as white and the blue lens shows the blue red as black and the blue dot as white. The brain is fooled into believing that the black dot seen by each eye is the same dot, which leads the brain to calculate the dots position as shown in these examples.
1 the dot appears to float above the paper
2 they overlap and appear on the surface
3 shift the other way dots appear below the surface

Can you tell me a little about TRPS Festival of Rock Posters that you were part of?

The Rock Poster Society is a volunteer army of poster art enthusiasts who put on poster shows in San Francisco that include rock art legends from the 60’s and new artists, too. Their regular shows are in the summer at Fort Mason and in the fall at the Hall of Flowers, but they are also involved in events like The 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love last year. A great bunch of folks who really care about the art, the artists, and the fans.

Image is Roky Erickson Halloween show at the Great American Music Hall, by poster artist John Howard.