Hero at the Bumbershoot Music Festival and Flatstock 22

If you are in Seattle this Labor Day Weekend Hero will have a booth at Flatstock 22 at Bumbershoot Music Festival - stop by and say Hi and buy some stuffs :) There will be over 60 different poster artists from all over the world displaying and selling their work. Come grab posters and hear the stories behind them straight from the artist. Show up early and be ready to be overwhelmed with amazing posters (you might want to bring some dough too since you won't want to leave empty handed.) FLATSTOCK is an all-ages event.

Bumbershoot Music Festival
Seattle, WA
Sept 5, 6, and 7
11AM to 8PM

Flatstock 22, presented by Bumbershoot Arts And Music Festival and The American Poster Institute, will be held for three days, Saturday, September 5, Sunday September 6 and Monday September 7 at The Fisher Pavillion, Seattle Center in Seattle, WA. You must have a Bumbershoot Music Fest Pass to get access to the Flatstock show.

Find more information on the event and band line up at www.bumbershoot.org


Below is a map of the festival grounds so you can easily find your way to us. Click to view it larger.
(Thanks Strawberryluna)

A little bit more about what Flatstock is:

The FLATSTOCK poster show series is presented by the American Poster Institute (API). It is an ongoing series of exhibitions featuring the work of many of the most popular concert poster artists working today.

The API is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to serving poster artists and promoting the art form. Both the API and its FLATSTOCK series were organized in 2002 as a result of conversations between interested artists and supporters frequenting the popular web site GigPosters.com. The best concert posters have always captured both the essence of the music they promoted and the spirit of the time in which they were produced. This is as true today as it was in San Francisco during the Sixties.

The FLATSTOCK shows provide the general public with an ongoing series of opportunities to see fine poster art in person and to meet the artists who've created it -- they provide the API with a way to present the poster artists collectively while showcasing the breadth of individual styles they represent.

Dunny Series 2009 - Pre-Release and Trading Party at Hero

Mark Wednesday, September 9 on your calendar with the epic release of Dunny Series 2009 at Hero. We will be having an OFFICIAL Kidrobot Pre-Release and Trading Party!! Meet fellow collectors, get your trade on and win awesome prizes. More info about the party can be found here.

Click here to download the trading check list!

See you there!

Get ready for Dunny editions of Devilrobot’s To-Fu Head Son and Mori Chack’s Gloomy Bear, plus a new bunch of wild figures equipped with the necessary accessories to wreak havoc on your collection. Keep an eye out for 2 chases that slipped into the line-up, plus Golden Tickets redeemable for an elusive 3-inch Dunny by the NYC-based artist, Pon.

Officially dropping September 10, these 3-inch figures will be available for $7.99 each.

Artists in this series include Amanda Visell, Andrew Bell, Amy Ruppel, Brandt Peters, Dalek, Devilrobots, Gary Taxali, Mori Chack, Huck Gee, Jeremyville, Kozik, Kronk, Luke Chueh, Mad, Pon, MR. Shane Jessup, Shawnimal, SupaKitch, Travis Cain, and Thomas Han.

Cant make it to Hero? Check out the list below of all the other OFFICIAL trading parties across North America and get to a store near you!

At Hero Now

Slightly off & and super soft, Choop! hails from TADO's Fortune Pork Mini Series 2. All grown up in this 10-inch plush version, Choop! is the kind of toy that will color your world with sinister surprises & sweet thoughts. Only 1500 made. Available NOW!!

We are victims of Design Thievery!!!

Hero has become a victim of design thievery. This time on an inconceivable level.

Local publication, Artvoice, stole original artwork that we created for the band Iron & Wine and altered it VERY slightly for a full page back cover ad, advertising their publication and their upcoming "Fall Arts" Issue. They even used our color scheme and textures. All of the major elements of the full page ad were stolen directly from our poster and used without our knowledge or permission!

This is a violation of the copyrights associated with our artwork and we are not going to deal with this lightly, we plan to take action and we are prepared to do whatever necessary to insure that this doesn't happen again. Not only to us, but to other artists that the Artvoice and it's designers could potentially steal from in the future. Another point to be made is when stealing artwork from a local artist, like us, whose work is known in the community, this causes causes confusion with respect to the source, sponsorship and/or our approval of their products and the services of their company. Within hours of the issue being on stands, and before we even saw it, we began getting phone calls, emails and texts asking if we started working with Artvoice and why did our artwork look like that, etc. This is embarrasing and potentially damaging to us and our company's name and reputation locally.

Whether its a young designer or a seasoned veteran this has got to STOP! Stealing original artwork from another working artist is disgusting, let alone another working artist in your own city. (Our offices are mere steps from each other.)

We also learned that one of the two elements that they added to our original design (beyond the type elements) was also stolen, from our good friend Julian Montague's book cover for Mark Goldman's book City on The Edge.

Check out this mess below.
Also take a minute to read the post we put up a couple of months ago regarding copyrights.

Their back cover design

Our original poster

A closeup detail of the skyline

A closeup detail of the skyline created by Julian Montague for, City on The Edge.

Hero is now booking for Fall and Early Winter...

Hero is now booking design jobs for the Fall and early Winter and our schedule is filling up fast. You've seen what we can do, now let us do it for you.

Contact us about your upcoming job, whether it be a custom illustration, packaging project, branding your company, event poster, whatever.

While we finish up our new website and update our outdated portfolio, browse our catalog of posters which we think is the best showing of our creative capabilities. And let us know if we can get a promo package out to you so you can see some of our work in person. Contact us here hero.design {at} mac {dot} com

Vote for this SXSW Panel!! It's So Big...

A few months ago, our good friend Susan Tanner, of Righteous Babe Records, approached about this idea for a SXSW panel, she asked our thoughts and suggestions on it and if we would consider being panelists on it. We loved the idea, as we have lots of opinions on this subject and said we'd love to be on the panel. Her panel suggestion has made it to the next level and is now in voting!!

The panel is called "It’s So Big! Packaging Design from CDs to Vinyl to Merchandise". You can read more about it and vote here.

You do NOT have to be registered for SXSW to vote but you do have to create an account, though. (it takes just minutes). Please take the time to vote for this and tell your friends, too.

This week at Hero - Donkey Dunny, Double Punch Week and a free $5

We need you! Help support Gigposters.com!

Gigposters.com is an amazing website run by our dear friend Clay Hayes! This website has really been an amazing source of information, inspiration, laughs, and so much more for us for many years.

When we got into screen printing our own posters, gigposters.com was an endless source of everything we needed to know about screen printing and gigposters. We literally had one person at the studio with the press and the other on a laptop searching the archives of the gigposters.com forums trying to find answers to all of our questions, and trying to figure out how to fix what we messed up.

Even if you have no interest in screen printing and design, this website is a phenomenal archive of gigposters and fliers for events and shows from all over. There are close to 108,000 posters in the archive, featuring nearly 10,000 differernt bands and over 8,000 designers from all over the world.


Gigposters.com REALLY needs your help now!! We all need this website to stay around and we are asking for your help to keep this gem around!! Please give or do what you can!!


Here is what you can do to help:

Buy the book! - if you haven't got your copy of the Gig Posters: Volume 1 book, please consider ordering it. (they make great gifts too)

Buy Merch! - coloring books, decks of cards, clothing, posters etc. There are a bunch of amazing items from so many great designers.

Go Premium! - get yourself extra site features and support this site.

Sell in the classifieds - sell your own posters, tees, handmade toys etc

Buy a banner ad - advertise your studio or business

And...if none of this interests you, and you still would like to help there is a donate button on the front page.

Matisyahu Album and Poster Giveaway.

JamBase is excited about Matisyahu's new album, LIGHT.

In celebration of the release they're giving away five (5) copies of Light, as well as a grand prize package of 27 of the unique silk-screen posters by Hero Design Studio from Matisyahu's Fall 2008 tour.

More info on the new record, the posters and to enter the contest go here.

(*the posters shown above are just a random selection of posters from the poster series we did, not necessarily what is included in this giveaway)

New at Hero and Available Now!

Futurama Mini Figures

3-Inch

Vinyl

Time warp to the 31st century with cast of Futurama!

We've teamed up with Matt Groening and David X. Cohen for the second time to bring your favorite Planet Express employees to vinyl.

From the cryogenically frozen Fry to the ancient Dr. Zoidberg, 12 iconic characters, including 2 chases are coming at you blind boxed in the very near future. Each figure in this series comes with a sticker and some include accessories too!

Smorkin' Labbit
10-Inch DayGlo Polka Dot Edition

Vinyl

Spots are the new solid, or so Labbit thinks after smorkin' a few too many and getting experimental with his coat.

Because of his smork-induced slip-up, this 10-incher's now puffing away on a candy cigarette, and though he probably won't admit it, we think his DayGlo spots make him just a little bit happy.

Only 850 made.

Rippers Zipper Pulls
1-Inch

Metal

Can't kick your Kozik habit?

The King of Smork just coughed up a fresh pack of 1-inch Mongers and they're like nothing you've seen before.

Made from smooth enamel slabs, these little addicts clip onto your jackets, hoodies and backpacks so you can satisfy your inner smork everywhere you go.

Collect Labbit, Captain Blood, Sarge, and rest of the gang in this 23 piece series!

Japanese Matchbox Labels

Found these lovely 20's/30's Japanese Match Labels on one of my favorite blogs Delicious Industries (which they got from Christian Northeast's blog, Lunch Tongue). Apparently Christian has a scrapbook full of them, I wanna see more!! See the original post here.

I am such a sucker for all the flat and over simplified matchbox and matchbook labels, no matter where their origin. They are always so dynamic yet perfectly understated at the same time.

Images copyright Christian Northeast.