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Q: Will this weekend (June 3) be the best ever for 2017?
A: Indubitably.
This year, the Roots Picnic celebrates its 10 year anniversary with a cavalcade of legends, icons, newcomers, and artists through-and-through. Since setting up shop at Philadelphia's Festival Pier at Penn's Landing, Questlove, Black Thought, and Shawn Gee have made sure to blend their eccentric tastes to culminate in a festival that delights all palettes.
To ensure that the branding around The Picnic remained on brand, The Roots turned to Okayplayer's president, Dan Petruzzi, to lead the charge of promoting and marketing The Roots Picnic. Imagine having the distinction of framing how the rest of the music-loving world will see your premiere event? How do you stand up to the challenges that come with getting the OK from the game's ultimate players?
Well, for Dan Petruzzi and his proverbial Rolodex of illustrators, painters, and designers, it was daunting, even frustrating at times, but in the end, worth it to cement The Roots Picnic as one of the best shows in the festival business.
To celebrate a decade mark for The Roots Picnic, we sat down with Dan as he regaled us with the Secret History of The Roots Picnic Posters for every single poster that has promoted the lineup since The Picnic's inception a decade ago
Designed By: Thomas Bongiorno
I have literally dozens of sketches and attempts at artwork for all 10 years. The standout moment I had in putting together the 10th annual Roots Picnic poster came from when I sent Shawn [Gee] 20 options and he picked the blandest one of them... because that's what works best for promoters and for selling tickets... not overly thought out art.
That's when all my dreams of making something collectible and classic for Roots Picnic were crushed [laughs]. We aren't even printing posters this year. I ran into Black Thought at our screening of [the James Baldwin-documentary] I Am Not Your Negro, and he was like, "What's up with that [poster]?" All I could say was, 'I know, Rik, I know.'
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Designed By: Nicholas Quintero
I've always sought out to work with artists who are easy to deal with and with whom we could spitball ideas back-and-forth. Nick has been incomparable as far as that goes. The idea has always been to try and create something fun [for the fans]. [Roots Picnic] is summer, it is live music and it's a classic good time hoot. Like pinball? I don't know. People seemed to like it. Working with Nick has been a blessing. He just quit his job to focus more on his art, which I think is a great idea. Holler at him when you see him, check out his work and thank you, Nick!
Designed By: Dan Petruzzi, Cecilia Elguero, Hibbard Nash
There was so much going on behind-the-scenes with the creation of this one that I don't even have time to tell you all the bullshit I put myself and my fellow creatives through. In coming up with this one, I am just glad that The Roots (again) called upon me the next year for year nine. What a mess, though [laughs]!
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Designed By: John Dessereau + Thomas Bongiorno
The Roots + Snoop Dogg was pretty captivating, I must say. This was the last Roots Picnic that had Rich Nichols still with us. This particular iteration of the assignment did yield a stellar Richard-quotable aimed directly at me, as he said, "Please get back to me when you have something that doesn't have dookie on it's breath."
[Laughs] Yeah, so, anyway, John [Dessereau] came through with the post-apocalyptic, Philly-rubble scene and he recruited one of his people [Thomas Bongiorno] for the text. I appreciate the soft color palette with this one. Did you know that John actually paints these center pieces—with a brush—and then scans them in. They are not done on the computer. Really good times, man.
Designed By: John Dessereau + Thomas Bongiorno
John + Bongi are great people, first of all, and are super talented. John and I would work to come up with a center piece of the art but he was never the most skilled handling all the text (which is always the biggest challenge with each of these). That's where Bongi would come in.
The art from 2013, for me, is the most solid of the 10 that we've done. The center piece of the heart was based on something John already had in his studio. He tailored it for the Roots Picnic by adding the instruments. Bongi came up with the Roots Picnic masthead design that might be my favorite from all of them.
We never wanted to get too literal with the whole "picnic" concept (which is another article for another time told by another person), but we did incorporate some classic plaid patchwork into the masthead for the seventh annual festival.
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Designed By: John Dessereau + Thomas Bongiorno
This [poster] was the first and only year at the Roots Picnic where the event was two days (Saturday + Sunday), rather than just the typical Saturday only event. This was before we took the festival to New York City where it became a weekend-long occasion. The year was 2012 and we initially set out to do something based on the Mayan calendar for reasons some people may get.
We ended up with this totem vibe. [I'm] really not sure it worked, to be honest. The number of artists with it being a two-day affair made this task extra challenging. We were always trying to make something unique with these posters, and it didn't always work, in my opinion. That said, there were always a ton of issues with deadlines and close calls, every year.
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Designed By: John Dessereau + Thomas Bongiorno
This was the first year in which we started working with illustrator and fine artist, John Dessereau, a relationship that would continue for many years following the poster for the fourth annual Roots Picnic. And like all the subsequent years, there were literally dozens of iterations of ideas sketched out and developed, until we finally reverted to a work John had already created that was hanging in his studio.
The piece was called "Dead Businessmen," and was fashioned after the world famous figurative artist and sculptor from Columbia, Fernando Botero and his "Dead Bishops". I came up with the idea to make a similar parody for The Roots. It was a nod to a very specific painting by a very specific and recognizable painter, and if you knew, you knew! I don't think many knew, to be honest.
The idea of this reminded me of The Roots' approach to music and art. Often they borrow from such a variety of sources, masking things in their own specific way, which is a talent in and of itself.
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Designed By: Richard Nichols
We didn't work on this with Rich, actually. He just did it all on his own. The Roots Picnic has always been Rich and Shawn Gee's vision. Rich was the type of creative who always thought to turn things on their head. That might explain why the City Hall of Philadelphia with William Penn perched on top is seen inverted in the graphic. The Roots and the Picnic are so core to Philadelphia, there has been an effort to represent elements of Philly in the poster design, without being too cliché or literal.
Designed By: Marq Spusta
Marq is a well-known illustrator in the concert-and-festival poster scene whose style those of us in the office have always liked. He was excited about the assignment and the approach was similar to the first year, only Marq's illustration style is a lot more intricate than Miguel [Ovalle's], at least in regards to poster design.
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Designed By: Miguel "Dizmology" Ovalle
The inspiration behind the first annual Roots Picnic artwork was to draw from the style of Bill Graham-era Fillmore West posters of the '60s. The intention was to create something that felt summer-y and fun, while still being classic, eclectic and mature, like The Roots. With all of the posters, we have never wanted it to feel too hip-hop or soul while aiming to create something artistic with the hopes of it feeling collectible and uniquely specific. This is what I conveyed to Miguel, who we worked with a lot in creating merchandise for Okayplayer and The Roots, and is a very skilled artist and designer who we felt gets our brands.
Don't forget you can still get your tickets to the event of the summer by visiting RootsPicnic.com.
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