You’re in Nashville, Tennessee, walking along Broadway. Music emanates from every open door and window, on every floor of every building. You’ve listened to some great bands, bought a T-shirt, and are wearing new cowboy boots or fishnet apparel decorated with sequined guitars. You’ve enjoyed barbeque for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or all three. What’s next?
If your major was American history, or you’re a graphic designer, illustrator, or typophile—or a lover of cool handmade stuff—turn the corner to Rep. John Lewis Way and enter Hatch Show Print (it’s through the lobby of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum). You’ll see lots of guitars and signage in the unmistakable Hatch Show Print style: clear messages set in BIG sizes of American wood type in bold compositions with several different typefaces, woodcut images, and bright, flat colors.
You’ll likely be overwhelmed by the wall of posters that chronicle stars of country music and the history of Nashville, including 19th- and 20th-century posters for circuses and variety shows. As stated in birthplaceofcountrymusic.org, “This tradition continues with prints, cards, and gifts designed by the shop’s staff who draw inspiration from the vast collection of wood and metal type and hand-carved print blocks created in the shop.”
Hatch Show’s current star is Santa Claus, who dominates the wall and the displays of posters, greeting cards, pillows, and other gift items. For this year’s new poster, he’s in a cowboy hat and boots and carries a guitar.
Other posters celebrate varied interests such as cats, party-going, and sports. During my visit, two men were in a deep discussion about the historical significance of the poster advertising Vanderbilt University’s first football game in 1922.
A 147-Year-Old Family Business
Hatch Show Print—now in its sixth and hopefully forever location, The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum—was founded in 1879 by Charles and Herbert Hatch. Charles’s son William began managing the shop in the 1920s and relocated it from the Midwest to Nashville, where leading printing companies were located. William grew up learning the craft of letterpress printing, including hand-carving the wood type that is still in use today.
Some of the most memorable Hatch Show Print posters were made for shows in the 1950s, starring Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, and many more. The collection grew as it added posters for rock musicians from Bob Dylan to Led Zeppelin. In the vintage collection are posters advertising everything from “Your Country Music Station” to local brands of ice cream, house trailers, and gasoline.
For 34 years, beginning in 1984, master printmaker Jim Sherraden—now retired and focusing on his own fine-art printmaking—headed the operation, then a few miles away in downtown Nashville. In Megg’s History of Graphic Design, Philip B. Meggs described Sherraden’s use of “vintage [printing] plates, blocks, and original moveable type—often scratched, dented, or worn” helped to create “an identifiable Hatch aesthetic.”
I had the pleasure of meeting Jim Sherraden in 2004 when he brought a portable Hatch Show to “The Design Conference That Just Happens To Be In Park City.” The three posters I bought and he signed will always hang in my house. It was fun to see them now, printed in different colors, on the shop’s wall.
Last week, after my visit, I had the pleasure of chatting with Celene Aubry, Hatch Show Print’s director and print shop manager since 2012.
“Moving here in 2013 was akin to a local band going on a global tour and making a big record deal,” she told me, explaining that The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum gets more than 1.5 million guests yearly. Aubry’s staff now includes eleven designers and printmakers. “Although everyone has a computer, there are more letterpress printing presses here than computers,” she said. “Our raw materials are paper and ink. And we only use type that was cut here.”
The books for sale demonstrate that the whole operation really cares about graphic design and typography, both historical and contemporary.
Never obscure the words.
Hatch Show Print’s ethos
700 to 900 Annual Print Jobs
“We make 40 to 60 jobs for the gift shop here and the museum,” Aubry said. The other 700 to 800 are for clients, which includes bands, of course, and for corporations and businesses large and small. Jobs for individuals also factor, such as for family reunions and birthdays. A few years ago, they made a poster for the 60th birthday of the owner of a cigar business—”his staff ordered the run of posters as part of a surprise celebration,” Aubry said.
You might think it’s not affordable for you or your clients. Not true! A run of 100 custom-designed two-color posters is $840 (with four months’ lead time and a clear design brief). You’ll get a careful listen and discussion of the event or theme and desired colors. A black-and-white JPEG proof will arrive via email, and maybe even another proof, should you request any minor changes.
The artists in the shop can add a photograph should the client request it, but the Hatch Show team always follows the dictum, “Never obscure the words.”
See Printmaking in Action
“Folks love everything tactile,” Aubry explained. “Everything here is made by hand, and every ink color is mixed by hand.”
The best way to visit Hatch is to join the official tour. Tours take place in a print shop within a print shop, a classroom Aubry describes as a learning space chock full of posters and letterpress printing artifacts from the shop’s history. Participants see and hear a press up close, smell the ink as it gets mixed and applied to the rollers, and participate in making their own posters. Designer and printer Bailey Walker, below, is one of the guides.
There’s plenty of creativity to spread throughout the year. Hatch Show Print is big on Valentine’s Day, the Fourth of July, and Halloween. “There’s always lots of love-related and sports-related cards and prints,” Aubry said. “Between the shop’s history with local collegiate sports—Will T. Hatch was a big Vanderbilt football fan—and the array of pro sports we have in Nashville, football, hockey, soccer, and AAA baseball, it seems we’re celebrating one team or another with prints.”
Hatch Show Print posters and merch are available in 25 states across the U.S., in places like the New York Historical Society, and at events such as the Los Angeles Printer Fair. Aubry travels and gives talks and workshops. In February, she’ll join students in their print studio at Indiana University. She’ll visit North Carolina’s Blowing Rock Art and History Museum in April to talk about Hatch Show Print during a special exhibition of vintage and antique show posters that tell the story of Blue Ridge music.
The shop’s website offers a stellar Hatch Show Print design education and shopping experience, even if you can’t make it to Nashville for the season.
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