Large Format from Basement

My basement also holds lots of large rolls of paper, long neglected. Here are a few; click any image to enlarge.

First, a calendar poster from Savran's Books:


Savran's was an institution in Minnepolis's West Bank neighborhood, very near the University of Minnesota. The illustrations of the bearded guy (created by L.K. Hanson) were ubiquitous when I first moved here in the late 1980s. The store went out of business around 1990, though it was later replaced by another bookstore (Mayday Books) and the Hub Bike Co-op, so it's wasn't a total loss. It's amazing how little there is on the Interweb about Savran's, by the way.

Next is a poster I made in high school:


That's watercolor and ink. The hard-to-see words are my attempt at calligraphy. Incongruously, I chose Speedball uncials to render the Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem "Constantly Risking Absurdity." (I still like that poem.)

Last of all, a poster I've been saving since 1982:


It was hanging in the hall of my college's student union for weeks. I waited patiently until the march had passed to snag it. This was the famous U.S. Out of El Salvador march. While I sympathized with the cause, I must admit I was more interested in the poster's design, and especially the typeface. It was the first time I had ever noticed Eras.