“Rule of Three” (Rams print)- Dylan Goodsell (@ daikonimation)
MORE SMALL BRANDS DOING EXCELLENT THINGS PLEASE
In fall 2019, we were handing out our magazines on South Elmwood near Allen and came upon Greg and Melissa of leftern, distributing their own work outside of My Cuzin Vintage.
Buffalo LOOK was something fresh and excellent to see in the city’s reinvigorated print scene:
It was one hell of a way to introduce themselves and their brand to the art scene in our region, and since then, they haven’t taken their feet off the gas.
While the Bills have been the darlings of our attention while successful and terrible for nearly 60 years, the art surrounding the team was mostly limited to old Super Bowl sweatshirts with drawings of Bruce Smith on them, or tri-folds supporting game day beer specials.
That is until leftern came around. Greg Moyer and Melissa Allen are tying together local artists, small businesses, and football obsession through their game day series over the last couple of seasons.
Last January, Melissa joined Rise for coverage of one of the last public events out ther and we look forward to having her back when things get back to normal:
The limited supply of prints for games has made them even more desirable, often selling out, and sales now have a charitable component too!
“Taking Our Talents to South Beach”- Dylan Nowak (@ dylannowakart)
“We used to go to a lot of away Bills games when we lived around the country, and found that there is little to no options for game specific merchandise for the games, especially now that ticketing has gone electronic. We wanted to give both Bills and opposing fans something to bring home from the games as memorabilia, or just a unique something that is Bills related to frame and hang on their walls, that helped generate some funds for local artists, businesses, and charitable foundations.
“We pay local artists to design a game specific gameday print for each of the Bills games, almost like a concert tour poster. They have full reign to design them however they want, as long as they stick within the rules and guidelines we provide to them. We hand pick artists of many different mediums with different styles on purpose, as to keep each week completely unique from the rest. We sell them for $15 on our website. We limit them to 75 hand numbered and stamped copies, and upon shipping, include with them information about the artist, this project, as well as who they are helping support with their purchase. We get them all printed locally at Buffalo Big Print each week, and handle fulfillment and shipping through the USPS.”
“Because I was Inverted” (Jets print)- Josh Benkelman (@ benksyone)
Proceeds:Â Every purchase helps support local artists, our business, Buffalo Big Print, and the USPS. On top of all that, we then donate 50% of profits to a local charitable foundation. During our first year of the project last year, we donated to a few different foundations. This year we will be sending the charitable portions of the profits sold all to Black Love Resists in the Rust. All remaining proceeds on our end go back into the business, and get pumped into other projects and costs we have to operate.
SZN 1 Recap (1st Year):
– 2k raised for local artists
– 2k raised for local charitable foundations
– foundations we made donations to: Mental Health Advocates of WNY, the family of Ezra “Pancho Billa” Castro, and Waddle’s Warriors
– sent prints to 36 different states, and 3 different provinces in Canada
SZN 2 Goals (This Year):
– 3.5k raised for local artists
– 3.5k raised for Black Love Resists in the Rust
– send prints to all 50 states, more countries (Already got some to the UK!)
“Buck Wild in Buffalo” (Broncos print)- Peter Cahlstadt (@ pcahlstadt)
“Excited to see where this season takes us! We are getting the ball rolling on our next couple projects as well. If it’s a project we put together, it helps shine a light on local creators and has some sort of charitable aspect to it.”
