In a second when live performance promotion is more and more compressed into Instagram grids and fleeting tales, illustrator Sergio Membrillas is doing one thing intentionally slower. The Valencia-based artist has simply launched a newspaper-format publication bringing collectively each band poster he designed over the previous 12 months, turning what had been as soon as non permanent, typically digital-first artworks into one thing you’ll be able to maintain, unfold, and maintain.
The publication features as an archive of a selected interval in Membrillas’ follow. Inside, posters for indie acts sit alongside work for extra broadly recognized artists resembling Róisín Murphy, U.S. Women, and Dry Cleansing. They span continents in addition to scenes, from London, Stockholm, and Chicago to exhibits nearer to residence in Valencia. Seen collectively, the gathering reveals each the consistency and vary of his visible language and the cultural work that these posters do past the night time of the gig itself.
“It is a newspaper-format publication that brings collectively all of the band posters I’ve designed over the previous 12 months, functioning virtually like an archive of that interval of my work,” Sergio explains.
He admits that he is lengthy been fascinated by the fleeting nature of posters and the way they exist for a selected second earlier than disappearing. “On the similar time, I actually take pleasure in seeing every little thing collectively, as a physique of labor,” Sergio explains. “The newspaper format felt like the proper container for that.”
There’s additionally a transparent editorial reference level. Sergio cites Interview Journal as a long-standing affect, and that spirit carries via within the layouts’ scale and confidence.
That format permits the posters to be skilled at their authentic measurement, which is one thing that is typically misplaced when work lives primarily on-line. Whereas it appears like a newspaper, the thing itself has been fastidiously thought of. It is printed on 160 gsm paper with excessive manufacturing values, and it is designed to final. If a specific poster connects with you, you’ll be able to merely pull it out and body it.
The timing of the mission can be no accident. Sergio describes a rising frustration with how hardly ever posters are printed now, even inside music tradition.
“At the moment, promoters hardly ever print posters anymore, as many of the focus is on digital promotion,” he says. But once they do seem in bodily type, the response is telling. Bands take pleasure in seeing their work in particular person, and followers typically attempt to take it residence. For Sergio, who grew up with posters as objects you lived with, the publication is a approach of reviving that have in a type that feels “lifelike, reasonably priced, and related now.”
Requested if he has favourites, Sergio hesitates. Each bit is tied to a selected second, band, or place, which makes selecting troublesome. Nonetheless, the posters for U.S. Women and Chris Cohen stand out, each for the music and for the way naturally the visuals got here collectively.
Although it is clearly his ardour, Sergio reveals that working within the live performance poster medium hasn’t been with out its challenges. Data overload, logos, and sensible constraints are acquainted territory, however he notes that mutual belief has been a continuing throughout collaborations, from latest tasks to earlier work with bands like Future Islands, Wilco, and Beck.
Belief has little question formed his method, as he has moved from specializing in assembly expectations to prioritising instinct and artistic freedom, notably in an business the place budgets are sometimes tight.
In gathering these posters right into a single, humble-but-elevated object, Sergio is doing greater than documenting his personal work. He is making a fairly compelling case for print’s continued relevance as a tactile, democratic, and culturally resonant medium. In newspaper type, these posters dwell once more past the scroll. It is definitely a theme we have been seeing extra of this 12 months, and one which we hope sticks round in 2026.
