CollaborationLinocutMember

Guiness x Rosanna Reade

posted by POP Members September 18, 2023

Earlier this year linocut printmaker Rosanna Reade was commissioned by Guiness to design a beermat for a campaign using the iconic phrase ‘Lovely Day for a Guinness’. As both a lover of Guinness and an Irish person, a more ideal client and collaborator could not exist! Rosanna comments; “I have grown up looking at the famous Guinness adverts around Ireland, with the toucan, the turtles and the idea that Guinness take their design seriously. So it was exciting to be asked to create something for them.”

“When approaching the brief, I instantly thought of my family holidays to Donegal in the west of Ireland, where you can never rely on good weather, and the uniform is shorts and a wooly jersey (bare legs are easier to dry, wool for warmth!),” says the printmaker. Days spent on the beach in all weather, playing pitch and putt while being eaten by midges, and then retiring to the pub for a Guinness are some of Rosanna’s favourite memories with her family.

After a few failed drafts (“alcohol advertising laws are pretty tight!”) and an attempt to add legs to the Guinness (“can’t anthropomorphise it”), they finally found the final design. This was a 4 layer linoprint, using a colour palette that Guinness suggested. Rosanna comments; “I really love the kind of Tintin/Hergé effect that has happened by adding black outlines to the sea and the shells”.

The mats are going to be distributed around a few pubs in the UK.

www.rosannareade.com
@rosanna.reade.artist

POP Members

You may also like