Gig Posters and Concert Posters » Nicholas Moegly

Gig Posters

Nicholas Moegly has created gig posters for Grammy-winning artists like Ray Lamontagne, The National, Dave Matthews Band and John Prine as well as dozens of other incredible bands. Every gig poster is skillfully screen printed and prints are typically a limited edition for each concert or tour.

Gig Posters Vol. 1 Zine

Gig Posters Vol. 1 is a zine that catalogs every gig poster I made in 2018. Included are some thoughts behind each design, initial sketches, notes and more. Like my prints, these will be limited to a small edition that are signed and numbered.

The reason I made a zine detailing all of my gig posters from the past year is to really give them another life. Each poster takes anywhere from 60 – 100 hours to design, and with social media being as it is – they get seen for 3 seconds and then scrolled past to the next post. So much thought, time and energy are put into these gig posters that it seems a waste that most people’s experience with them is so quick and cursory. With the gig posters all being limited edition, not everyone can have the original physical print and see every detail of the design. So this zine allows people to still have a physical piece that they can see, feel and focus on that’s away from a 3-inch screen.

Limited Signed Edition of 50
40-Page Zine
7.5 x 10″
80lb Uncoated Paper

SOLD OUT

Why Gig Posters?

Shows are this unique experience where every night and every set are going to be different in some way. Changes in the venue, the setlist, the audience, the other bands, the mood of the band or the mood of the fans can make one night feel totally different from another night. They’re this ephemeral thing that can’t really be duplicated. Gig posters are the perfect accent piece for shows because they’re also this unique and special thing that can’t be reproduced and once they’re gone, they’re gone. They’re a physical representation of the show and a small piece of that night that can actually be taken home.

How Gig Posters Are Made

The design for gig posters starts out pretty simple as a general idea or concept. Sometimes the band comes in with something in mind, but more typically the concept is created by Moegly. A handful of quick sketch concepts of potential poster designs are usually given as options and one is picked by the band to actually use. The concepts are mostly influenced by the overall style, sound and feel of the band and their music, but they can also be related to lyrics, the location of the show or themes based on a specific album.

Once the concept is finalized the actual design is started. The entire poster is hand drawn at scale so the process of illustrating can take up to 2 – 3 weeks depending on the size and amount of detail. Part of designing a gig poster, especially when it’s a more complicated illustration, is keeping in mind that it’s going to be screen printed in the end. There’s really a separate art to setting up design files for printing in its own right because if the file’s are setup wrong a whole batch of prints can be trashed. When the final design is approved and setup to print it’s then handed off to the printing team.

The method of screen printing has been around for hundreds of years, the tools have changed over the years but it’s really still the same idea. Each color is printed separately layer by layer with extremely close attention to detail to make sure the registration (alignment) of all of the colors is right on. Screen printing is by far the best method of printing for gig posters because it allows for colors to be really vibrant, it’s flexible with different types of inks and paper, it’s affordable and it creates a true limited edition of prints that can’t be reproduced by just hitting the “print” button. There’s constant communication kept with the printing team to make sure the posters are coming out just as imagined. After printing, the posters are signed and numbered (depending on what the band asks for), packaged up safely and sent off to the band or venue.