Depression Mountain 3: Fear of Literally Everything — Stream now on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and Amazon. Young Fools PDX Pop Now! is an all-volunteer organization that provides support for live performances and recorded materials that are accessible, contemporary and local to Portland musicians. Through their annual compilation and summer festival, PPN showcases the best up-and-coming music makers.

In July, eBay’s Portland outpost put out a request for proposals from artists to decorate their new third-floor office spaces. The brief suggested themes like The Portland Horse Project, Beverly Cleary, Rose City Rollers, Darcelle and Paul Bunyan. As I contemplated sundry possibilities, I kept returning to one of my…

It’s okay! He’s in remission and didn’t die! Buy a T-Shirt! — In June of 2016, my best friend called to tell me he had cancer. It made sense in the context of our lives. We had reached our mid-30s and had grown weary of the tedium in our daily rigor. Cancer was a good pick for anyone with a natural inclination…

Now in Squigglevision

You don’t need to make a full synesthetic leap to find music in the words of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Melodic language set to poetic rhythm with a healing timbre—it’s all there. So when Julia McNamara and I were tasked with creating the promotional poster…

Medium has weird header leading; it needs a subtitle to look right — I have been making Futura Bracket since 2011 and sharing it with wider audiences online (through Tumblr, Twitter and email) since 2012. So long as I enjoy NCAA basketball, it is something I will continue to make in perpetuity, even if the audience is just me. Futura Bracket is a…

Preface: Cool Word Combinations That Just Mean “Collaboration” and a Moderate Dose of Excessive Self-Importance — This is a story of syzygy and synergy. Or, rather, the story of the byproduct of that story. Our heroes aligned and allied to illustrate and design four posters for a theater—whose plays had not yet been written (they were still being adapted from their respective looong books)—regardless of working…

Collaborative Constraints — For the second time, BT Livermore and I decided to make something together. And for the second time, we were faced with laying out parameters for the project. Over a quick beer, we decided the collaboration would yield: a poster in the style of the WPA concerning a contemporary subject …

A conversation between postermongers Michael Buchino and Julia McNamara.