I met Greg Elizondo several years ago and easily came to the conclusion that he is a pretty swell guy; if I needed any further evidence of this it was recently delivered in the form of a personal invitation to create the first art print for the launch of his exciting new brand, Hoppy Press.
Formed jointly by Greg and Paul Finn, Hoppy Press is “an online gallery specializing in beer art for home brewers and beer lovers.” Their goal is to “create beer art that really captures the spirit of homebrewers,” but also to create exceptionally high quality print products that will stand out from the cheap, flimsy digital reproductions that clutter so many walls. To such ends, they worked with word-class screen-printers, Industry Standard, of Portsmouth, NH who helped ensure that the prints turned out top notch – using 110# French Paper and environmentally friendly soy-based inks made to last a lifetime.
For my part, I was really excited to work on something related to one of my newest passions: brewing up boat-loads of homemade booze. My girlfriend and I have been brewing for a bit over a year now, successfully concocting a few patches of dandelion wine (under the names “Sunshine Fuzz” and “Raccoon Baby”), as well as a very fine India Pale Ale we dubbed “Two-Headed Boy”. I think the most exciting part for me in terms of creating this print for Hoppy Press was the opportunity to work on some fun custom typography, and to combine that with simple yet lively shapes and textures. I’m happy with how it turned out, and I encourage you to pick up a print if you feel the same; there are only 100 of them, and having seen the final product that Industry Standard put together I can say they’re worth every penny.
Enjoy!
W i l l y W a l l y --- Art & Design blog of Brian William Walline 