Description

When Aaron Bouchard from Pacific Puzzle Co. approached me earlier this year, he talked about wanting an original poster design that represented the Muskoka region of Ontario. There was a catch though: he didn’t want “retro”, he wanted “vintage”. I was so excited by the challenge and set out trying to figure out how I could create a more modern and inclusive travel poster because unsurprisingly, old travel posters are extremely “settler colonial” by their very nature. This entire design was an experiment to see if I could extract the vintage aesthetics that I loved so much without bringing any of the racism or colonialism along with it, and how people would respond to it.

I don’t want to spoil the Easter eggs, but there are a few references to the Muskoka region of Ontario and the Three Fires Confederacy, who called that area home and stewarded the land long before Europeans showed up.

Not to toot my own horn, but Aaron told me that someone came up to him at a show to say how much he loved the poster design and that his grandpa had the original hanging in his basement for years….which is literally impossible because not only is this poster brand new and not based on a specific pre-existing poster, but there’s no way an old travel poster would have shown these two families as equals, sharing an evening around a campfire.

Thanks again to @pacificpuzzleco for the opportunity to work on this piece and the trust in me to pull it off!