Each year we go through a long process of refinement of our poster from a number of ideas, finally selecting one, and developing it step by step to reach what we consider to be the finished artwork. This normally takes several months from beginning to end, sometimes it seems like we will never get there, but somehow we always do. A.J. Garces (www.HavanaStreet.com), who has done most of our posters since 1993, works tirelessly and patiently while we make small, seemingly insignificant changes. But they all add up to create one of the best, if not the best, poster in Austin each year. Oddly, these never show up in the Chronicle polls when the best poster category shows up. Short memory...or short sightedness?

Here's how this year's poster progressed. We're leaving out the pool of initial ideas because you never know when those might pop up as a finished poster in the future and we want that to be a surprise! We are also leaving out most of the intermediate steps and the minor changes reflected therein...these represent the major steps.

(all illustrations ©A.J. Garces 2004)

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From left to right: This is the first rough sketch of the chosen design (the idea is inspired by a 1904 Brazilian magazine cover...the woman on that was totally nua!); next is the first color treatment...the woman is too Barbie-looking so...; the next step changes her greatly, fuller figure, dark hair...and totally nua! the man's appearance also changes dramatically.

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Second row: we still wanted her to be a little more Rubenesque, so this first sketch adds a few more pounds; the middle frame shows the drawing taking shape, but the background was too dark; the next two (#3 on row 2 and #1 on row 3) are identical, except for the background colors...we liked the pink, but thought the yellow was hotter somehow.

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Following the pink version, the next frame adds shadows, refines the colors and creates more depth on the figures...but the "font" is not quite right, oh, and the border is too heavy; The last shows the art in its final form as sent to the printer. We will print 600 of these for distribution around the city and they will be offered for sale at Waterloo Records and other locations. In 50 years, they will show up on Ebay for hundreds, or thousands, of dollars!!!

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Our Gallery pages display many of past years' posters.
We will finally post the complete collection from 1978-2005 sometime in early 2005.