Corporate Retreat with Adventure
So I have officially begun something that I truly enjoy, having various workshops in my magical printshop in St. Joe. I think this ball got rolling because of my good pal Gina who works at Adventure Advertising (Brainerd • St. Cloud • Minneapolis). She is a big dog over there and is sweeter than sugar with all the things she is happy to help me out with. This was something that she pitched to the gang as a fun, team-building event for the whole office to dive into. Her boss was super into it and they reached out to work out the fine print (ha ha). Gina and I are all kinds of art smart but when it comes to math we are dumb. We laughed for 24 straight minutes trying to figure out what a guy would charge for something of this magnitude; we even tried to keep the numbers real easy and still I was like, wait, like 10 large? That seems high yo. Eventually we went back and forth and came to something that seemed like it was a winner for all parties involved.
I coordinated with Annette and Meg as they asked about bringing food and libations, "Well, of course," I said, it's Bruno Press, it's only logical to partake. They worked out all of that while I secured the logo of the business and designed a beautiful poster that would take 3 passes through the press to complete. I took out all the variables for decision making, cause let's be real, a room of 17 designers and only 4 hours to complete? No thank you. That was good for them and even if the group was a bunch of chiropractors, it would've worked the same.
The group from Adventure showed up at noon on a Thursday as did my trusty intern Ashley to assist me and my best Bro Mike Thienis to make a killer promo video of our lovely afternoon project. It was nothing short of amazing, I got the show rolling with a quick run down of what we were going to do for the next 3.5 hours, I already had ink on the press and we jumped in feet first!
People were shy at first but after a few cranks on the Vandercook Proof Press and a beer, everyone was stoked to make something with their hands! After the eye-popping rainbow roll backgrounds, we then moved to the second run: some sexy wood type + Adventure logo + new copper ink. After that I taught the group how to set type and asked that they pick their own font from the hundreds of drawers of type and set their name. It was so fun to watch them discover leading and spacing, and how to make it all fit. I told a bunch of funny stories about cease & desist letters from aging rappers, shit that is trending (who effin cares), and how I got started in all this old school goodness.
Seventeen names in hand set lead type locked up in the Vandercook press.
The last step was to print the final color and put away the type. Everyone was super helpful and excited about the final product. Timing was perfect and it just felt effortless, like I am doing pretty much exactly what I am supposed to be doing, ya know what I mean? It's just cool, we were all hugs and some people made some BP purchases and laughed about the hilarious cards and shit.
Limited edition, signed posters for Adventure Advertising. (estimated worth: 100 million bucks)
Thanks Adventure, you are awesome and welcome anytime, you were an absolute pleasure, and I hope you had half the blast that I did!
Video credit: Mike Thienis www.rubinskiworks.com
testimonial(s)
"Spending an afternoon in Mary’s shop was like being invited to the cool kid lunch table. We learned shit, we printed shit and we talked some shit, all fueled by Mary’s special formula of her signature badassery + design brilliance. Best of all, it was a chance for our team to collaborate on a really awesome project and spend time outside our natural habitat, while still being in the artistic space we favor. There’s no doubt we’ll be back for more."
ANNETTE KMITCH | ADVENTURE™ | Director of Operations & Resources