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Home - Art
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In Print
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The art of music merch and posters in Omaha
by Jesse Claeys
The three-man team at Ink Tank does judge a band by its cover.
The cover of its T-shirt, that is.
Is the name difficult to read, illegibly printed on black cotton? Probably a metal band, production director Pat Oakes would guess.
“If there is a skull or snake it is metal for sure,” Oakes said.
Is there a picture of a singer proudly displayed shirt center? That would be a sure sign of a country music tee, according to art director Ethan Jones.
“I’m not sure what that’s about, but it’s a very common design for that type of music,” Jones said.
Jones, Oakes and tour merchandise manager Chris Esterbrooks are comfortable stereotyping a band by its merch because musical acts big and small often call upon Ink Tank to fill vans and buses with everything from hats to tote bags. Why do bands back up the music with merchandise?
“So they can eat,” said Esterbrooks.
Ink Tank began in November 2006 when Saddle Creek Records decided to open an offshoot specializing in band merch. Since then a variety of nationally touring Omaha-birthed acts (Cursive, Bright Eyes) and regional/local ones (Jes Winter Band, Paria) have called upon the team and its 10-color automated screen printing press to put band image to item.
Saddle Creek’s artist roster provides most of the business at Ink Tank, and the occasional call for hand-printed silkscreen posters. Over 100 Jones-designed, Oakes-produced yellow ones adorned New York City walls in October to hype the record label’s 2009 CMJ showcase. Nearly 100 other posters decorate Ink Tank’s production room, one of which is for the 2006 fall catalog of larger cross-town rival printer Impact Merchandising. It’s a nod to the fact all roads at Ink Tank went through Impact, where Jones, Oakes and Esterbrooks were once employed.
You’ll also see the original posters gracing windows and walls throughout town.
Touring merch production is not the star of the show at 16-year-old Impact Merchandising. What pays the bills at the downtown printing facility is the wholesale of T-shirts of bands like the Rolling Stones, Ramones and other such iconic acts, to large retailers such as Hot Topic. Impact now wants to evolve, recognizing the chance to create additional revenue supplying touring bands with hoodies bearing band names and logos.
For that they brought in a musician to sell to musicians.
Joel Petersen is best known as a member of indie rock band The Faint. Over the past four months he’s become known as the artists services representative at Impact. He’s the guy who shares a bit of practical knowledge with bands (“Anything breakable is never a good idea. Sure, a coffee mug with your name on it is cute and original, but you’ll smash half of them before you can sell them.”) before matching musicians with one of Impact’s three graphic artists. The style of the artist must be considered. The one working in the self-proclaimed “controlled chaos” vein is Impact’s Shane J. Wiggins.
“I try and keep one foot in the street and one foot on the golden step with my designs,” Wiggins, a fine arts grad from Doane College, said as he stepped away from work on a new Freddy Kruger shirt graphic.
Nearly 90 percent of bands, Wiggins and Ink Tank’s Jones agree, provide their own designs that simply need to be readied for screen printing with the use of computer programs. The fun part is when a band comes with an idea or concept and needs an artist to bring it to life.
The graphic artists said creating a design for a band’s merch starts with learning about the group. What’s been done before? How does the music sound? Which singles are popular? Those things need to be considered. From there a series of images are created for the group’s consideration.
This is also where genre meets stereotype.
“I have this friend, a metal act, who is out on tour right now and thought it would be a good idea to print white Ts,” Petersen said. “He can’t get anyone to stop by his merch table. Nothing is selling.”
Yes, metal fans like black. And yes, Funkadelic singer George Clinton, one of Impact’s largest tour merch clients, along with Wilco, has an aging fan base.
“His fans are getting older,” Wiggins says. “They are going to be interested in sizes, types and a quality of items that a band with a younger fan base might not be. These things need to be considered.”
Petersen, switching from merchandiser to musician, said, initially, bands sell merch as a means of marketing, wanting to get its name out via T-shirt, beanie, whatever. That changes once a band gets its big break, he says, when hard goods become more about making a profit and subsidizing the sales of singles and records, a dwindling revenue stream.
“We like to get really creative with our shirts,” Petersen said, displaying a Faint shirt design utilizing a clever printing technique, “but ultimately it’s the fans who dictate the garment.”
Ink Tank Merchandise, is located at 8924 H St. For more info visit inktankmerch.com. Impact Merchandising, 2451 Saint Marys Ave. More info at impactmerch.com.
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