Venues, like The Newport, are a common canvas for music posters to be pasted on. Credit: Zachary Rilley | Photo Editor

In the vast community that is the Columbus music scene, poster artists help performances come to life with their artwork.

The variety of music venues located in Columbus allows for local bands to play throughout the city, advertising their shows with the help of local artists who have the skills to creatively spread the word, Peter Kratcoski, a graphic designer at the Cleveland Museum of Art, said.

Kratcoski said aside from his day job, he has worked as an illustrator since 2015 and does personal projects, mostly surrounding music — such as album covers, flyers, logos and merchandise for events.

Kratcoski said he got his start working on posters by reaching out to venues and asking if they needed any done for shows they were having.

“When I first started and I didn’t have, like, a body of work to show, I would email venues and say like, you know, ‘Can I please do this poster?’” Kratcoski said. “‘I’ll do it paid, you know, either not at all or like, in concert tickets for the show,’ so that got me a couple of cool ones.”

Kratcoski said he is now working on posters regularly, and he rarely has to seek out jobs.

“I’m really lucky in that I don’t have to look for posters, ” Kratcoski said. “I’m always working on at least one, people just ask me.”

Kratcoski said there are multiple steps to his poster-creating process. He first gets basic information about the event and then sketches out a quick drawing before sending it out for feedback.

“I’ll send that to them, they’ll say whether or not they like it, if they want to change anything and then after that’s approved, I do like a final design,” Kratcoski said.

As for the style of poster he goes for, Kratcoski said it depends on what he is working on and tries to use inspiration from either the event itself or from things he keeps in his back pocket.

“There’s always something different to do,” Kratcoski said. “So like, you know, make it a little more aggressive if it’s for like, a punk or hardcore show and if it’s for like, something more indie, it’ll be maybe a little bit looser and a little bit sillier or a little bit cuter, you know?”

Jack Omori, a 2021 Ohio State alumnus who performs in multiple bands around Columbus, said he has been creating posters since 2020 and got into poster-making through involvement in the local music scene.

“We put out a demo tape in 2020, and we needed art for it so I’m like ‘Oh, you know, I’ll just do it,’” Omori said.

Omori said along with playing in bands, he also does booking for other bands around Columbus and offers to make the posters for them as well.

“It’s actually usually like, I’m booking the show, and so I just end up making the flyer just because I’m like ‘Ah, you know, I know how to do that stuff, I’ll just do it,’” Omori said.

Omori said when creating posters, he sticks to Photoshop. In terms of his style, he said he tries to make them look xeroxed — a black and white photocopied look — because historically in the hardcore and punk world, that look was widespread.

Omori said he has a very clear goal when it comes to what he wants people to get out of his posters: He wants to catch people’s attention, so they can spread the word about these events.

“The goal is to get people to come, but also like, I try to make them, I guess, just interesting and funny,” Omori said. “I just kind of just do whatever I think would be whatever I personally would want to see or think is funny or cool.”