ROGUE STATE DESIGN - ZAK KAPLAN ONLINE PORTFOLIO



			11.13.08 Another gallery exhibit featuring many of my posters. Check it out... The Art Gallery at Umpqua Community College 1140 Umpqua College Road, Roseburg, OR 97470 541.440.4692 Hours: 8 - 5:00, M - F November 3 - December 10, 2008 University of Oregon Folklore graduate student and instructor David Ensminger, who has just finished a book on punk art and culture, will be curating an extensive collection of punk poster and flyers (known variously as urban folk art, instant Xerox art, and street style vernacular expressions) in the Art Gallery at Umpqua Community College, in Roseburg. The exhibition content focuses on Do-It-Yourself, often handmade posters that will survey over 30 years of subculture history.
	Featuring a broad range of work from North America, Europe, and Asia, the exhibition will also focus on the often ignored contributions of women, gays and lesbians, and people of color in punk. The exhibition will also feature potent photography and ephemera culled from punk archives and a looped, original documentary video made by Ensminger. Titled “Chronicles from the Zero Hour: The Punk Legacy,” the film features interviews with members of MDC, Chumbawamba, Strike Anywhere, Lifetime/Paint it Black, The Epoxies, Dag Nasty, and contains live footage of TSOL and the Circle Jerks. A short video lecture outlining the important issues of punk art will also be shown.

			09.14.08 Here's a quick update. A poster I did for an event called BaROCK EASTON, a registration drive held before the PA primaries last winter, is being show in an exhibit called "Politicial Persuasion: Street Posters for Barack Obama" at the Kansas City Art Institute. It is on view in the second floor studio space at the H&R Block Artspace from September 27 - December 13. "Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has inspired legions of young supporters, instigated stadiumwide chants of "Yes, we can," and, perhaps most curiously, become a favorite source for artistic inspiration. You've seen the images everywhere: home-printed T-shirts, friends' Facebook profiles, and long fences surrounding urban construction zones. Obama stares out at you, bracketed by such messages as "Hope" and "Progress" — a fusion of viral artistic uprising and mainstream presidential politicking. Starting today, see a diverse array of such posters at Political Persuasion: Street Posters for Barack Obama, an exhibit at the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute (16 East 43rd Street). The display, featuring posters from the private collection of KCAI professor Hal Wert, aims to showcase just how forcefully the Obama phenomenon has affected artists of all stripes. The posters will hang well beyond the election — through December 13. For more information, call 816-802-3458." - McKay Stangler / The Pitch

			01.13.08 Happy New Year! Here's a little update on what's been going on... Art & Design: Lots of new projects. Working on vinyl edition of River City Rebels "Keepsake of Luck". Just completed new 7" design for Canadian band Spectres. New(ish) Off With Their Heads cover art (on left). New Southside Johnny & Asbury Jukes tee shirt designs. Three posters for Bouncing Souls "Home For The Holidays" shows. New label site for Chicago's Full Breach Kicks. Doing some work for The Syrnetha Savio Endowment and added to the artist roster at Sire Press. Be sure to check out Sire Press (sirepress.com) as they have a lot of unique alternatives for CD pressing. Will be getting some of these designs up in the coming weeks. Also in the art and design department, Rogue State Design in conjunction with Chunksaah Records released a postcard set featuring 15 of my
	poster designs called "Asbury Punk Nights". It includes a silk-screenedprints, is limited to 200 sets, and they are hand-numbered. There are still some sets available at www.Chunksaah.com. And!!!...One of my poster designs from the "Asbury Punk Nights" series has recently be awarded "Poster of the Week" over at GigPosters.com. Stop over there and check it out and look me up...lots of designs that aren't featured over here. I can't say that the "featured" design is one of my favorites (in fact it's one of my most disappointing designs [see interview with www.mutinyzine.com]) but I never mind a little extra publicity. Music: Sad to say that it looks like The Ratchets are totally over. Back in September we went on "hiatus" but after a few months off and a couple conversations the hiatus has turned into a breakup. Sorry kids...and thanks for the support. The end of The Ratchets marked the first time in close to 13 years that I found myself band less, however, that didn't last too long. New Jersey basement legends Plan A Project recently announced a reunion and I am proud to say that I will be joining the band as second guitarist. Back in '99 I was set to join the band and for some reason (which none of us can remember now) it never happened but I'm pleased to be playing with them now and we'll be taking it back to the streets on Jan. 25th in Brooklyn, NY with The Orphans and The New Dress. You can view the flyer here. That's all I got right now. The web site section of the portfolio is extremely outdated and I will be working on getting that up to date as well as trying to add more to the other sections. Thanks for the support and keep checking in!

	09.14.07 Quick update...check out an interview I did with Swedish e-zine, MUTINY ZINE. You can view it at www.mutinyzine.com/home.html. Also, I've been putting up a bunch of posters a www.gigposters.com lately so look me up over there if you want to see more stuff.

			07.05.07 It's been just under 11 months since I launched this site and did so with the intention of keeping it updated. Well, things haven't quite worked out that way. Apparently, if you launch a design portfolio site people will suddenly want you to start working for them. Needless to say, this site has generated quite an amount of work for me over the past year. Additionally, I've been getting a lot of great feedback from fellow designers who have stumbled onto the site and their kind words really do mean a lot to me. One project that stands out this year is the book jacket design that I created for Ronen Kauffman's New Brunswick, New Jersey, Goodbye (pictured to the left) which is being released by Hopeless Records next week. Not only does the jacket feature my design, many of the photos inside come from my 1995-2000 collection. Also, I appear as a character in the book, as a punk rock band guy who gets beaten up by skinheads. Ah, they were some memorable times. Aside from the book, I've been designing the regular punk rock things. New record art for bands like River City Rebels, The Triggers, The Plungers, Spectres, Off With Their Heads, and others. New show posters for gigs with The Draft, The Loved Ones, The Pietasters, The Casualties, and tee-shirt designs for my former hometown heroes Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. Chunksaah Records has been keeping busy with new releases by Philly's The Low Budgets and NYC's World/Inferno
	Friendship Society. I've even managed to get a lot of work this year in the non punk sector picking up design jobs with Planned Parenthood, Street Glow, AdFrenzy, Styleranch, Cub Market, etc. etc. This past year has also been a busy one for me musically. The Ratchets released Glory Bound this past fall and toured both coasts and the midwest with bands such as The Hold Steady, River City Rebels, and The Lucky Stiffs. Rock,star is finally releasing Inamorato after a 7 year hiatus. And Worthless United even got back together to play 6 songs in Asbury Park. Please take a few minutes to check around the site. You'll find a hand full of new design and I will continue to try to find the time to keep this thing updated. That's it for now, time to get back to work!

	08.09.2006 FINALLY! I can't believe it took almost 2 years to redesign, revamp, and actually buy the domain name for this website. It's been a long year or two with lots of designing and a lot of learning, and it's been nice going through all the disks and the files and revisiting these old projects. It's been a busy year designing for records by Catch 22, Bigwig, Bouncing Souls, as well as my own musical project, The Ratchets. I spent 7 months designing DVD & CD layouts for a company called Digiview Entertainment where I picked up a lot of new skills and tricks from the people I worked with and hopefully shared some of my own. Chunksaah Records has been busy as ever with recent releases by Bouncing Souls, World/Inferno Friendship Society, Strike Anywhere, J Church, The Plungers, Johnny X, and Spanish Bombs. I think the past year has been the most active year for the label in the 6 years I've been involved with the company. Hopefully I will once again become overwhelmed with design work but will be able to find the time to keep this site up to date with all my projects. Thanks for stopping by, come back often, and feel free to drop a line.