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Draplin Design Co., North America
June 13, 2011
Goodbye, Ohio!
Posted at 11:49 AM

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Our view from the 14th floor of the Hampton Inn, right smack dab downtown.

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If anyone fucks with Ohio’s “Knife Fight,” well, just know that they fuck with the entire DDC enterprise. Seriously.

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Leigh (wo)manning the DDC merch table. A proud offering of must-have DDC merch at “priced to move” prices. Thank you for the excellence, under fire.

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Dan Christofferson completely slayed it with this mural in the gallery. Blown away, really.

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Joseph Hughes explaining what goes on in that big brain of his. We listened, intently: “You gotta believe in yerself.” Awesome.

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Nate Utesch and Dan Cassaro. Bruisers. Too much talent. Not fucking fair.

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Moments after this, the stage exploded with rainbows, color spectrums, fanned-out Pantone books shooting in every direction. We needed more color and Jessi opened our eyes to the world. Thanks, lady.

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This is what it looks like when Mikey Burton takes a picture of the stage he’s about to walk on and command. Yeah, “that” Mikey Burton. Serious chops. Beardy, in the best way.

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We went to this thing and had a fun time. You should too. Fuck the hatemongers.

Here’s our master list of WMC Fest awesomeness:

01. The interns. You know who you are. Good work!

02. A surprise appearance by Chris Glass. Always awesome.

03. Jeff Finley’s logisitcal mastery at work. Perfect!

04. Hot dogs at the Happy Dog.

05. Meeting Joseph Hughes and hearing his talk.

06. Meeting Joseph’s better half Casey for a split second.

07. Marveling at Nate Utesch’s brilliant posters, like five times.

08. Meeting Cleveland’s OKPants!

09. Shooting the shit with “Knife Fight!” Can’t wait to watch that doc, man!

10. Eyeballing the illustration chops of Oliver Barrett. Wow.

11. Meeting Jay Delaney, the guy behind “Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie.”

12. Getting to the bottom of some shit with Dan Christofferson regarding SLC and all the wildness within it, both on the celestial plane or some neatly-gridded street. One rad fella from the Wasatch.

13. Backstage stromboli. Sounds like a cool band name.

14. Meeting Brandon Rike and checking out his Seger t-shirt!

15. Getting a handshake from Kiki Karpus in the hall. Traverse City!

16. Trying to find grub at night in Cleveland, and almost dying of malnourishment.

17. The punctual valet badasses at the Hampton. Thanks, brothers.

18. That last meal at the Big Egg.

19. The Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame. Just go it. You know you want to.

20. Seeing the Jessi Arrington Color Explosion up close. Wow. More color.

21. Meeting Mikey Burton, that gentle, master of the craft. So damn good.

22. Shooting the shit with Brandon Minga from Milwaukee.

23. Embracing the dark side with Steve Knerem!

24. Special thanks to GoMedia for sponsoring the event! Thank you for believing in the DDC, enough to bring us into town for the event. So fun.

25. Shootin’ the breeze with Dan Cassaro of Young Jerks. Some of the coolest shit out there. Wings over America!

26. Hell yeah, Tyler!


There Are 5 Comments

Draplin, thanks for coming back to the midwest and inspiring us designers. WMCFest was so refreshing for me as a designer and I have to thank people like you, Mig, and everybody else that spoke for inspiring the hell out of me. I really hope to get my shit together and be a guru like yourself! Good luck with life!

Posted by: Chris on 06/14/11 at 3:41 PM

What a great weekend. Glad to finally stare you down in person, brother.

Posted by: Joseph on 06/14/11 at 6:03 PM

Thanks for the mention Aaron

Posted by: Tyler Reckart on 06/14/11 at 7:11 PM

Awe we’ll miss you Aaron. There’s a big hole in our hearts now that it’s all over. We hope you come back to Cleveland again! Let’s stay in touch throughout the year.

Posted by: Jeff Finley on 06/15/11 at 1:19 PM

Was great talkin to you too, man. Don’t be a stranger.

Posted by: Knife Fight on 06/15/11 at 5:21 PM
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