a blog by ryan hayes

Toronto Anarchist Bookfair

With help from a lot of friends (especially my RDS co-conspirator Natalia), I designed this three-part poster for this year’s Anarchist Bookfair. All of the anarlicious and bookciting details can be found here and here.

I’ve been working on this idea since February. It’s partly an ode to milkcrates, those ubiquitous utilitarian objects that have to be liberated/taken/given because they are not for sale.

The backdrop is a halftoned photo of the Occupy Toronto library, which was collectively built book-by-book, milkcrate-by-milkcrate, and eventually housed in an enchantingly beautiful yurt (later taken down on police orders with the rest of the encampment).

The lettering is in my own hand (scanned and then vectorized in Illustrator) and the subjects are all kind volunteers who posed for photographs after filling up the milkcrate with their own selections.

Some of the details are pretty subtle, like the Haudenosaunee flag hanging over the crate in the middle image, but I’m glad that they’re in there.

Although this is nowhere near as detailed or seamless, one influence that I definitely want to cite is the photographic works of Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge.

I had a chance to watch Portrait of Resistance, a documentary made about them, and I highly recommend seeing it.

Some fun early explorations…

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