How a Poster is Born

Last December, before a soul crushing winter had fully descended on Boston, Sitecore sponsored a posh Meetup at Stoddards pub. While mixing it up, I ended up talking to Rick Cabral about making some t-shirts for the user group. While at the Sitecore Symposium the previous fall, I noticed a few other groups had made their own shirts and I thought it was really cool and as it turns out, I may know a guy who makes t-shirts. So knowing I could supply the backend, I asked Rick what kind of design he thought would be good. I didn't really expect it but his eyes widened and he started talking about how he always envisioned this soviet-era propaganda with the slogan "Join the Sitecore". I almost died laughing because I could totally see it. I didn't need any other explanation and let's be honest, with the goatee, he looks kinda like Vladimir Lenin and would perfectly fit the caricature. And just so you know, as Rick continues to insist, he didn't come up with the idea of immortalizing himself, I did.

Shortly after the meetup I contacted my old, old friend Jay at Antidesigns to produce the design. Working with his team, we went back and forth for few rounds, working from some cruddy source images I pulled off the intarwebs but the image wasn't good enough. It was just too grainy and he wasn't projecting the right message. Here's a few of the early designs:

Eventually I just needed to get a good photo of Rick, so I grabbed him after the user group and he breaks out this World War II helmet, gives this classic pose and everything else fell into place. 

With the design locked down. The next step was producing product but I wasn't sure how to get the funding for the shirts and I didn't want the design to languish so I ponied up the dough myself for the first run. Of course, if you're making a propaganda piece, quite literally, I really didn't think making t-shirts could do it justice; I had to make posters. Talk about getting sidetracked though.

I started with a run of 25 and have since ordered another 15. They're limited edition, artist signed and numbered. They're printed on a parchment type paper and they're absolutely awesome. Rick got the first and I gave him 10 more to dole out as he sees fit for the user group as prizes or whatever. The rest I'm going to be giving away as mementos. I wish I could give one to everyone but they're high quality art and they cost a bit so I couldn't but as owner of the copyright on the design I'm opening it up to the community to use freely (see copyleft).

You can download the vector files here!

Here's the resulting work in all it's glory:

and here's a close up. You can kind-of, sort-of see the grain of the paper... or not:

Anyway, I'm hoping that this makes it easier to raise dinero for the shirts for our user group since it's much easier to explain something that is tangible. 

Also since I'm opening the design to anyone to use or modify, I strongly encourage anyone who wants it, to brand it for their user group. You could even commission the same artist to make some more Sitecore art for your user group or even modules like Powershell, SIM, TDS etc. (wink, nudge). So please hit up Antidesigns and tell them I sent you. They can print on all kinds of stuff and do everything by hand. I'd absolutely love to see what you can come up with. 

Otherwise, long live the #sitecorecommunity!