Quaranzine Fest
is PRESS is a Denver publishing press and studio space. is PRESS publishes short run art books and zines documenting urban art, and conceptual time-based art that explores the nexus of art and everyday life. The studio consists of Peter Bergman, Heather Link-Bergman, and me as the studio assistant.
In response to Covid-19, is PRESS started Quaranzinefest. This online event was ideated and launched within 4 hours. Quaranzinefest was created for artists and zine makers all over the world who were experiencing hardship from event cancellations. The idea was to create an online zine fest by posting zines, prints, stickers and anything else someone would bring to a festival on Instagram. Everyone used #quaranzinefest to populate all of the posts into the same space, creating a virtual gallery of zines. I created these illustrations and a consistent graphic system to help promote the event.
Credits: Creative Direction – Peter Bergman, Heather Link-Bergman
Illustrations & animations – Chandler Bree Dolan
Speakers - Peter Bergman, Heather Link-Bergman, Rick Griffith, Eric Von-Hayes, Oriana Leckert
Funding – Kickstarter
Quaranzinefest gained quite a bit of traction, and was shared on Instagram from accounts all over the world. Eventually Quaranzinefest was noticed by Kickstarter, who was excited by the movement and chose to sponsor the event. With Kickstarter’s help, is PRESS was able to expand the event even further and addsome virtual studio visits, demos, and artists talks. We were interviewed by Broken Pencil Magazine, who published an article helping us promote the event even further.
By the end of the event, the #quaranzinefest tag collected over 2,200 posts from artists all around the world, giving thousands of people the opportunity to connect, share their work, and make money during a pandemic.
Process
This event required me to switch gears extremely quickly. All of the events I created content for were cancelled, which lead to the creation of the online campaign for #Quaranzinefest. The entire event was ideated and designed within 4 hours. I believe this online event caught on because it was one of the first of its kind.