ARTCRANK is kicking off its 2014 season in Austin, Texas this Friday at Fair Market. Olmsted-Kirk has teamed up with ARTCRANK sponsor, Neenah Paper to create our own limted edition poster for this one-night event. The poster is printed on the new, ENVIRONMENT®, Raw™ Finish, Concrete, 100 Cover. Foil-stamping and a double hit of fluorescent ink have been utilized to simulate silkscreening with offset printing. This new ENVIRONMENT, Raw™ finish is spectacular. It's super plush. You must feel it to completely appreciate this proprietary finish created by Neenah. This poster will be available at the event. Another reason to join us this Friday night.

If you are not familiar with ARTCRANK, allow us to introduce you. It combines bikes, design and paper. It is a unique poster event that is the brainchild of Charles Youel, creative director and curator. Bike-inspired, handmade, limited-edition posters are created by more than thirty local artist and put on display for purchase. Print techniques range from screenprinting to letterpress. This year, we will even see some laser-cutting.

With the help of Neenah Paper, our Austin office has been busy consulting with local artist and designers to choose just the right paper for their handmade, limited edition posters. All this week, we will give you sneak peeks of some of the posters you'll be able to purchase on Friday. 

This is the third show to visit Austin and we are excited to take part. ARTCRANK will take place this Friday, April 25th at Fair Market. Neenah Paper will have a photo station where you can snap a selfie against an amazing bike art backdrop.

Please join us. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Austin-based LIVESTRONG and its ongoing campaign to provide  free cancer support services to help people cope with the financial, emotional and practical challenges that accompany the disease.

Sneak peeks are on their way...

Here's the first installment of our ARTCRANK sneak peeks. We're excited to see all the bike-inspired posters this Friday. Over the past weeks, O-K has been consulting on paper choices with designers for their limited edition posters. We're ready to share their choices.

Take a peek at the memerizing design and illustration work of Ty Wilkins. His bold and colorful work has been utilized by Target, Pepsi and The North Face (to name just a few). His illustrative style is friendly and confident. You'll see more on Ty's process for this poster in the weeks following the ARTCRANK event on Neenah's Against the Grain blog. Neenah will be featuring four artists from this year's event who've chosen to print on their paper.

Shown here is just a small portion of the poster he has created for ARTCRANK TX 2014. It is silkscreened in four colors on the new Raw™ finish of Neenah's ENVIRONMENT® in Honeycomb.

Get out to Fair Market this Friday to join in the ARTCRANK fun. Over thirty artists have created posters in limited edition, available for sale. Is Ty's one you'll be taking home?

More peeks to come...