Leah Durner

New York City-based artist Leah Durner approached me recently to design a broadsheet for a talk she was giving at the College Art Association’s 105th Annual Conference. Durner’s paintings on canvas, paper, and poured enamel are large, dramatic, and energetic, so I designed her marketing piece on oversized newsprint that required the viewer to engage with it physically. When folded the broadsheet measured 11 x 15, but when fully open, revealing one of her beautiful poured enamel paintings, the piece measured 22.75 x 30 inches. In addition to the large, poster-size image and another poured-enamel painting on the cover the broadsheet included text and callouts that echoed and clarified the scale, color, and feeling of Durner’s art.

Durner  went on press at Linco Printing in Long Island City, where she oversaw the company’s team of skilled printers as they ran the broadsheet through their sheet-fed web printer. Linco specializes in printing large-size work for New York’s creative community, including fashion, architecture, art, music, film, photography, and the performing arts, and their skill and experience were reflected in the wonderful job they did on this broadsheet.

Durner also hired me to design a slide show presentation for her conference talk. I used Keynote to place thirty of her images into a template that was simple, clean, and consistent with the design of the broadsheet. Using her laptop and a projector, Durner gave a 30 minute talk to an audience of 200.