Behind the scenes of the underground music scene - Flier making

Welcome to the first part of the "Behind the scenes of the underground music scene" series, where we take a look at the people and important parts of the underground music scene that help bring things together, from putting on shows, to making show fliers, shirts, and album art for bands, along with much more.

The Black Sheep August 20th flier by Brian Galecki

Promotion plays a key role in bringing people to shows. In order to properly promote a show, a flier must be drawn up.

Show-goers will expect the fliers to provide basic information, such as: A) a venue, B) a list of bands, and C) a cost or donation.

With the task of drawing up a show flier, many designers have taken it a step further, transforming what was once just a need for basic information into an art, with insanely detailed drawings, and delicately colored designs.

Our first guest in the series is Brian Galecki, an up-and-coming flier designer from Springfield, Illinois.

Find out what inspires him, what he does, and how he does it, and take a special look at some of his recent work below.

1. First, tell me your name and what you do.

Hi. My name is Brian Galecki. For my job, I do industrial design. Right now, the only things I have done with my college degree have been designing baby products and lunch boxes, which has actually been a lot of fun. Other than that, I enjoy making, drawing, and designing stuff for bands, shows, and whatever else needs to be done. I also play trombone and keyboard sometimes.

2. When would you say you first started getting involved in the DIY scene? What got you interested in it?

I started playing in a band and going to shows when I was 15. It’s funny though because I wouldn't say that I was really involved in anything relating to music or the DIY scene until my freshman year of college, when I was 18 or 19. That year, the band I had been in broke up and I was sort of stuck in the dorm without any shows or band practices to go to. Not having the band sort of forced me to get out and start going to shows on my own in Champaign, and also work towards starting a new band with some of my old band mates.

Around the same time I realized that I could really use my artistic talents towards doing things outside of school like making fliers or helping out bands with logos, shirts, or whatever else.

Black Sheep Fest flier by Brian Galecki

3. How did you become interested in posters/fliers?

My first few fliers I did on MS Paint. I did those because a band mate booked shows and asked me to do the fliers for them, knowing that I was going to school for art. Looking back on those fliers, I think I was really dumb for using MS Paint, and I would have been much better off drawing them by hand.

After that I would say I became interested in collecting and making fliers because of the stories they carry. In my room, I've been keeping a collection of fliers for the past two or three years of every show that I have played or have been to. Each flier represents a show, and a lot of times there are memories behind it.

Either the show was a lot of fun or something happened like the house almost got shut down, the floor started caving in, Trent hid in the car for three hours, etc. So there is that aspect of it and then there are also fliers and posters that I like because they just plain look awesome.

I always hate when someone books a show and then never bothers to make a flier for it. It doesn’t have to be anything good, just doodle on some paper or cut and paste something together! Anything! Jeez.

4. Where or from whom do you draw inspiration for your designs?

A lot of people. I don’t think there is anything I have done where I wasn’t trying to capture what I liked about someone else’s style in one way or another. I think that my friend Cory VanMeter has mastered the cut-and-paste technique when it comes to fliers. Amos Pitsch, who plays in the band Tenement, is another one who makes great cut-and-paste art. More recently, the flier/poster artist Abe Collins from the Chicago area has been a huge inspiration for me. He is able to whip up amazingly detailed drawings just done with ball-point pens. Mitch Clem is another big one.

It’s always fun to look at really old fliers from the 1980s or 90s to see how the punks did it when computers were not easily available. I just did a flier not that long ago where I stole a design someone did for a show in the late 1990s at an old Springfield venue called the Asylum.

5. How long does it take to draw something up? What kind of techniques/tools/programs do you typically use? Are there different processes for say drawing up a design for a shirt and drawing something up for a patch or poster?

I don’t really have a set process or technique for making fliers at this point. Really, I have been trying out new things with each one as I go. If it is a drawing, then I might spend about a day on it, but then take multiple days after that to re-do the drawing or make different variations of it just to make sure I get everything just right.

A lot of times with drawings I will also use Photoshop to clean things up, but sometimes not. I am still learning how to use computer tools like Photoshop in the best ways when it comes to making things look the way I want them to.

6. What type of work do you typically design? Do you design for any other clients?

So far, I have done fliers, shirts, patches, stickers, logos, website banners, and album art. It’s been mostly fliers though. I have only done a handful of the other stuff. And really when it comes down to it, I don’t think I have made a whole lot of fliers. There are probably less than a dozen that I have done in the past few years that are decent.

All of my design work has been mostly to help out bands, but then I have also done some work for the C-U Collective and also a lot for The Black Sheep in Springfield.

Patchwork 2012 Springfield Music Compilation cover art by Brian Galecki

7. What do you feel is your best work?

I am excited to really push myself with new designs now that I am done with school and don’t have to worry about senior thesis projects or any of that annoying stuff. The few things that I have done since I have finished school I have been able to spend a little more time on and I am happy with the results. The Black Sheep Fest 2012 flier I recently finished turned out nice, and I also recently did a shirt design for the Chicago band Itto that I am also pretty proud of.

With all of that being said, I just finished school a month or two ago so I think that my best work is still yet to come. Right now, I think that I am still getting a feel of what tools and techniques work best for me, and it will take me a while to find out what works best for me and be able to master those techniques.

8. There’s a bunch of designers out there. How do you set your work apart from the others?

For me it has never been about setting my work apart from other designers. I more look for designers that I like so that I can use their work as inspiration and take certain aspects from them to apply in my own designs. I want to be able to make work that looks good to me before I start developing my own unique style that’s separate from everyone else’s or anything like that.

Plus, on top of that, I do not think that there are an abundance of artists in Central Illinois who spend time making fliers or designs for bands, so what I am doing is pretty unique as it is in our area. There are a few (Dan Hill, Cory VanMeter, Kyle Rotta, Jillian Nickell, Chris Wahlfeldt, Kamila Glowacki, Benny Dewitt, etc.) but more and more kids who go to shows are less and less familiar with hand drawn or cut and paste fliers being put up around town or handed to them at shows.

9. Anything else you’d like to add?

If anyone wants to see more of my work, I have been planning on getting a website set up for a while now, but for now I have a gigposters account and a tumblr that you can look at.

And hey! You never asked me about any of my favorite bands coming out of the Midwest now! Hospital Job, Tenement, The Copyrights, Dino Bravo, Mildred, The Timmys, Caterpillar Club, Kowabunga! Kid, Coed Pageant, Our Lady, Horrible Things, Witch In Her Tomb, Lord Snow, Itto, Shaved Women, Lumpy & The Dumpers, Nephrons, The Please & Thank You’s, and Laughboy are some of my favorites that people should check out.

Thanks goes out to Brian for doing this interview and thank you to all of the flier-makers out there that provide us with such an awesome craft. Look for the next part of the series on shirt and album art designing up next.