John Lacko

This past October, John Lacko did a film industry poster for a Colorado agency called Mrs. K who hosted an Oktoberfest party for local film agencies this year.

“Kegs with Legs” is an annual theme party for film and motion design agencies around Colorado. Each year one of the local agencies is assigned to host the party and to create a theme for the event. This year’s theme was “Oktoberfest” and Mrs K’s Creative Director, Jeanne Kopeck wanted to top past parties with an over the top poster design.

“Steinen mit Beinen” is German for “Kegs with Legs” and she called upon Lacko Illustration to breathe life into this campy, German poster to announce the upcoming festivities.

“I decided that traditional illustration wasn’t going to be enough for the poster and that I need to create something more surreal. Working with Mrs K’s husband – photographer Peter Thron – and account exec-turned-model Brianna Kapell, we staged a St. Pauli style photo shoot to add particular charm to the final product!”

Giant beer steins and pretzels are staples at Oktoberfest so John opted to make the name of the party the focus of the event by designing real Gothic style pretzel letters which were baked from scratch! John crafted a custom font, made real pretzel dough and then he and his wife baked several versions of each letter. Lacing the letters with butter for a golden brown shell and topping them with
bright white speciality pretzel salt gave the letters an old world authentic German feel.

Each letter is unique and with the exception of some color correction after the letters were photographed. No photoshop manipulation of the pretzel font was used nor harmed during the process. Squeeze-bottle mustard accents and letters finish the piece. John then assembled the elements with starbursts and a checkered wood
textured backdrop.

“Baking and building the pretzels with my wife was the best part of the project. After hearing about all the extra hours we put into the art and realizing we didn’t actually get to eat any of the home-made pretzels we baked, Mrs K’s mailed us a GIANT box of Kim & Scott’s Gourmet Pretzels to reward us for all of our hard work! It wasn’t a traditional poster design but it was by far our favorite project
of the year,”  Lacko commented.

The final poster which was originally printed at 22.0″ W x 28.0″ H. To which we say Prost!

Client:
Mrs K’s – Film Direction & Motion Design Agency
http://www.mrsk.tv/home.htm

Click here for Artist John Lacko’s website and Altpick.com page.