MIAD Designer Brings Green-Tinged Insight to Irish Fest

By Elizabeth Altman

Murry, who does in fact spell his last name sans "a" (perhaps the traditional Irish has been infiltrated with his other Polish, English, and Swiss lines of descent), designed his poster during his junior year at MIAD. Along with fellow undergrads involved in the joint annual university and Irish Fest competition, Murry and other junior year illustration students completed the poster in class. 

"It was basically another project," said Murry. "You spend two weeks working on it, from concepts to the final piece. It’s about two weeks which is not a lot of time compared to some of our other projects."

Murry’s poster, which will be used for Irish Fest’s marketing and publicity, depicts an Irish storefront from its side, viewed in a multitude of vibrant green as the store’s window ledge and its bouquets of red and yellow flowering plants recede into the background of a hazy Irish sky. Using ink and paint for the majority of the poster, Murry has prominently displayed on the store’s signpost the words "Irish Fest" in large white digital text, with the festival’s location and dates on smaller signs below.

Murry’s idea for this design came from his typical process of research. Searching for examples of traditional Ireland, Murry found inspiration from photographs of old Irish storefronts and towns, both on the Internet and in books. 

"Every time we do a project, we research a whole lot and get kind of a feel of it, like what the sky usually looks like," said Murry. "Ireland has sort of, from what I gather, a lot of rain or a lot of clouds, kind of like not bright blue sky usually but more gray, hazy looking. I just look at photos of what buildings would look like, what street lamps would look like, what the signs would look like." 

Murry also considered the client-artist relationship in working with Irish Fest. 

"This [poster] isn’t exactly like normally what I do," said Murry. "It’s different, because with the Irish Fest competition, you have to go back and forth and get the ideas. They give you input and you try to just go for what they’re looking for."

For Murry, that’s the point of illustration. "You have to work with a client and find out what they want. This was what I thought would be appropriate," he explained.

In his art, Murry tends to gravitate towards the illustrative portraiture of artists or musicians as featured in Rolling Stone magazine. He also designs album covers for friends’ bands.

"With my artwork, there’s almost always people in it. Because I just like images where you can connect with somebody in the piece or there’s somebody there," said Murry. "It gives it more life, I think."

Although Murry’s final design for this specific project was "people-less" and different from his usual artistic style, as with other assignments, he first brainstormed several ideas with classmates. Many originally featured Irish dancers, musicians, or townsfolk. Creating thumbnails, or basic, smaller sketches, were used for discussion in class, 

As the process went on, Murry became more drawn to his shop sign design. Unsure of why the poster stood out to the Irish Fest committee, Murry said, "I guess a lot of the designs would have a musician playing guitar, a lot seemed to be the same. This design got pursued because it was a little bit different than all the other ones, [from other] students’ and years previous." 

"There were a lot of designs I thought were really good and I thought were going to win it, but it’s not my decision," said Murry.

Following the thumbnails, Murry created a tight sketch, or finished work, which included all the elements of the final print, down to the wood-grained finish of the storefront’s large oval sign. The process culminated with the poster's final execution and printing at the MIAD building.

Now that his poster is in its print form and has begun circulating around the Irish Fest office, Murry says he is "definitely glad to be involved."

"It’s definitely a weird thing to be signing posters and people buying them, but I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be in a pub in Ireland and see it," said Murry, who may thus have an ulterior motive behind his competition-winning design. 

"I guess some student from a while back was in Ireland and went to a pub and saw his poster from Irish Fest hanging on the wall in a frame so he got free drinks that whole night and that’s pretty cool," said Murry.

Originally from Oconomowoc, Murry was always interested in art. He took numerous art classes in high school and at one time considering media school for video editing. He now pursues drawing and painting. After trying a bit of everything MIAD had to offer, he decided on illustration by the end of his freshman year.

Murry’s other MIAD experience includes working for The North American Review, a literary magazine. He placed runnerup in designing a potential cover for the magazine. He and his classmates have also worked on spot illustrations and cover work for the entertainment section of the Dallas Morning News, a newspaper based in Texas. 

Murry, who will be graduating next spring, hopes to apply his formal training to further magazine and poster design. He plans to stay in Milwaukee for a time, if not for the preponderance of custard and crème puffs, then for his freelance work with local magazines where he would illustrate advertisements. Murry also hopes to continue working with bands on album artwork and poster design for their shows. 

As for his final thoughts on his experience with Irish Fest and this competition, Murry believed, "It’s definitely something to remember. It’s good to be going to school and not just be breezing through." He preferred such important assignments because artwork is actually being used. "You’re not just always making a piece for the heck of it," Murry indicated.

And although Murry said there was "not really [Irish] heritage pride in my family" he still maintained some connection as a fan of the bands Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly. He saw the latter at Summerfest but wisely steered clear of the mosh pit out front. 

Murry will be on hand at Irish Fest to sign posters, hoping that visitors get a feeling of "tradition but not quite tradition…I hope it (the poster) reflects what people get from Irish Fest...enjoying the culture that is presented." 
 
 

Writer Elizabeth Altman can be reached at lizzyaltman@hotmail.com