Making art that resonates with Alan Porter

There’s something about buying a concert poster after witnessing an unforgettable performance by your favorite artist or band. You’ll take it home, frame it, hang it up. And every time you glance over at it, memories of that show will come flooding back. It’s an honor artist Alan Porter doesn’t take lightly.

Ever since he was a child, the Mexico City-based artist loved to draw and he loved music. When he was in college and beginning his career, he realized he could merge those two passions in the form of “gig posters” for bands.

Now, Porter works in advertising as a graphic designer, but he’s expanded his passion project into an impressive portfolio of posters for major bands that have performed in CDMX. And he has no plans of stopping.

On the first unofficial and official concert posters he designed

Porter’s first foray in designing gig posters was for Wolfmother, an Australian hard rock band, in 2014. He sent the image file to them on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook on a whim. It was Wolfmother’s bass player who saw it and shared it on his own personal Twitter account. Gratified, Porter printed a small copy of his design, attended the concert, and at the end of it, threw the print onto the stage, in hopes they’d see it and love it.

“They didn’t see [the print], but it was a nice experience,” he said. “It was my only chance, so I was going to do it.”

Porter received his first official commission in 2018 when his advertising agency’s creative director introduced him to Ahmed Bautista, the director of an artists collective called Mercadorama that focuses on designing art and merch for bands. The opportunity? Design a poster for Death Cab for Cutie when they perform at Mexico’s Corona Capital Festival.

Though the graphic designer didn’t have direct contact with the band, he created three proposals for them to approve and tweaked them based on their guidelines. (No skulls, birds, or taxis in their posters, the band said.) The final design was printed and sold at the festival—not bad for Porter’s first official poster.

Since then, Porter has continued to work with the collective and has reached out to artists on his own. He’s designed for Wilco, The Black Angels, Osees, The War on Drugs, and more.

“The bands I contact directly are bands that I really like,” he said. “I would really like to have a piece of my artwork for them.”

On developing his signature style

When Porter first started designing gig posters, he honed his visual, graphic style, placing emphasis on impact through repetition over minute details.

“I really like designing patterns for things that resonate. That’s what I’ve been trying to keep in my artwork,” he said. “When you see the poster, you can recognize my artwork.”

This simplistic, repetitive style stems from his lack of complex drawing skills, according to Porter. Still, he believes that this design “makes things more iconic, more powerful” when evoking a band’s essence in paper form, he said.

His distinct brand is prominent in his poster for the War on Drugs show at Teatro Metropólitan in 2023. Porter played with repeating geometric shapes while centering the poster on the idea of nostalgia.

“Birds are quite a nostalgic animal, sometimes. And The War on Drugs really transmit that nostalgic vibe,” he said about his inspiration. He rounded out the poster with an evocative color palette and dotted shading that’s reminiscent of faded paper, to drive home that wistful feeling.

Though he’s still drawn to repetition, Porter’s style continues to evolve. Lately, he’s been working to make his art more complex, bit by bit, and taking risks.

“Maybe you won’t see it in my posters, but the mental skill keeps developing, and also how I use software and conceptualize things,” he said. “I think it’s a creative process that keeps developing all through your career.”

With a number of notable bands under his belt, Porter has his sights set on designing a poster for “the Holy Grail for all graphic designers that are in the gig poster business”: Pearl Jam. After all, the band’s posters were one of his inspirations when he first considered creating gig posters in college. He currently has two of their prints that he treasures.

At the end of the day, a gig poster isn’t just event information on cardstock. For fans, it’s a lasting souvenir from a memorable show. For bands, it’s an artistic commemoration of an epic performance. And for Porter, it’s a way of giving a piece of himself to both the fans and the bands.

Here are Alan' Porter’s 12 songs.

I listen to music most of the day, while taking a shower, commuting to my office, when I’m designing, and finally at concerts.

My love for music and graphic design has driven me to combine these two areas and make graphic design for the music business, mainly in cover artworks and gig posters.

Pearl Jam is one of the most important rock bands in the gig poster culture, and I was obsessed with listening to their music and their poster graphics in my last high school years and college while studying my design career.

I listened to all their albums, singles, etc. and later I found that they record almost all their shows and sell them as “bootlegs” even though these recordings are officially sold by the band.

While listening to one of these tapes, “Live at New York,” I discovered a live version of the song “Daughter” from the album Vs. that was longer than the studio version. It included some improvisation and the incorporation of a section of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In The Free World” and this blew my mind. It made me a huge fan of Pearl Jam’s live versions and overall live songs, where the artists include covers of songs inside one of their songs.

I really hope someday to be able to design a gig poster for Pearl Jam and make my younger self proud.

As a kid, I remember listening to a local radio station that my parents tuned in the car when taking us to school or to other activities. This station was called “Universal Stereo” and it was mainly focused on playing music in English from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.

On this station, I listened to The Doors’ “Riders on The Storm,” a song that, when beginning, it has the sound of rain falling. I remember to have closed my eyes while listening to this song and my mind teleported to a rainy and gray day. This song is special because it showed me that music can create atmospheres and take you to different places.

I have to say that listening to this station helped give shape to a big part of my music taste that nowadays is mainly composed of psych rock, prog rock, classic rock, and stoner rock.

I listen to music while working and lots of those times I want to listen to new stuff. In those searches, I came up with a cover artwork that made me click to the full album stream video.

The album was the 2009 Summer Sessions Vol. 1 by the Danish psych rock and stoner rock band Causa Sui. Choosing a single song from this record was a tough task as all the album is like one huge song that, in my mind, is a story told with sounds. I chose the first song because it introduces the listener to this “musical trip” and it lasts half the duration of the record.

This whole album is a must-listen for me when I want to concentrate while designing.

Causa Sui is part of a Danish label called El Paraiso Records that has a unique and minimalist visual style for all their releases. Thanks to this, I have unearthed some musical gems in the psych and stoner rock genres like the band Papir, the artists behind one of my next top songs.

Thanks to the discovery of the band Causa Sui, I came across Papir, an instrumental space rock band from Denmark that has a very trippy but clean and polished sound. 

“Tuesday #1” is part of this list because from the first time I listened to it until now, it always makes me feel happy. With their sounds and textures, it creates a kind of “secret happy place and moment” for me.

Papir is a small and niche band that I think deserves to be listened to by more people and I really hope to someday have the chance to see them live.

Tame Impala arrived in the 2010’s as a high-class psych rock revivalist with their debut album Innerspeaker. They came to Mexico City in 2011 and gave a small concert (they weren’t as big as they are today). I attended but didn’t know their music much and after experiencing them live, I automatically became a big fan. I bought that record in CD at their merch booth and after giving that CD a thousand spins the song “It Is Not Meant To Be” became a constant song in my head.

In 2019, Tame Impala headlined a festival in Guadalajara, México and I wanted to make a gig poster for that show. I contacted Ahmed Bautista, the founder of Mercadorama, an artist collective and merch company that has worked with the Australian band before, and asked him if there was any chance to design something for Tame Impala. He told me to send some poster ideas and a few days later while having lunch at a restaurant, they notified me that my design was selected to be the official gig poster for that show. I remember going out of the restaurant for a few minutes with a big smile and coming back inside to tell a friend the big news.

This poster is very dear to me as Tame Impala is a band I really like.

As a Mexican, there was no way of not including songs in Spanish and the first one of them in my top 12 goes to the Argentinian band Soda Stereo, a band that nowadays I like a lot and back in the day, I didn’t listen to them that often.

This band was introduced to me by a friend while working together. He just played this song and the version he played was from an unplugged session that is the least unplugged session I’ve heard ever and is called “Comfort y Música para Volar” MTV Unplugged. It is one of my favorite live albums ever.

Moving aside from the plugged “unplugged” session, this version of the song is pure madness, the electric guitar is amazing, and it also has the collaboration of Andrea Echeverri, the lead singer of the Colombian band Aterciopelados.

This song is special to me because it was my entry point to discovering more of this band, and listening to them also reminds me of that friend.

Café Tacvba is my favorite Mexican rock band and they are a very big band here in Mexico. Their live shows are quite an experience.

“Volver a Comenzar” is a happy song with lyrics that talk about starting again. It is a very recomforting song to listen to if you are sad or in case you need cheering up. This is a good tune to recover the mood.

I discovered this song while playing the video game Little Big Planet. It was included as part of the soundtrack on a level that was inspired by Mexico.

Another amazing discovery, thanks to its cover artwork, is the Greek band Naxatras.

Their unique heavy psych sound blew my mind away since the first listen to their first album. The song “I Am the Beyonder” is a very mesmerizing track that, little by little, begins to wrap you with more and more sounds that are being introduced to the song as it advances.

Pure psych goodness.

I listen to this song when I’m looking for a punch of energy.

For me, this is the best record ever made. Great concept, legendary cover artwork, and the whole album is like a big, long song. That’s why I included it here. It is my most listened to album.

In the year 2015, I used to work at a small art movie distribution company in Mexico City and while being there, I listened to a lot of music.

I remember browsing for new music to listen to on Spotify and then I saw a cover artwork that instantly caught my eye (for me, it’s a very common way to discover new music, by their cover artwork). It was Khruangbin’s debut album The Universe Smiles Upon You.

The first song is “Mr. White,” a tune that became an instant classic for me because of their unique blend of Thai music, rock sounds, and relaxing atmosphere that it creates. 

Thanks to discovering this sound, I have found some amazing bands like Vuvuvu, Balthvs, Tinariwen, Mdou Moctar.

I had the chance to design a gig poster for Khruangbin in 2022 via Another Planet Entertainment in California.

I am a frustrated bass guitar player (I’m trying to play it again), and I really pay attention to the bass when listening to music. In “Crush,” the bass line is very bouncy, funky, and super catchy. Every time I listen to this song, I can’t take the bass lines out of my mind and keep humming it all day long.

Dave Matthews Band has a special place in my heart because I listened to them a lot, especially the Live at Wrigley Field album with my best friend and reminds me of good times with him.

I would really love to design a gig poster for them. I hope to make it happen soon!

This song holds a special place in my heart because even though it’s an amazing tune, it reminds me of mom, a big Beatles fan, and especially of Paul McCartney.

In 2010, Paul gave a concert in Mexico City and some weeks before the show, my mom lent me a Paul McCartney Greatest Hits record. From there “Band on the Run” became my favorite track and, of course, we went together with my dad and sister to the gig. It was the first time that as a family we went together to a concert.

Last year I ran a half marathon and before running, I asked some close friends to send me some motivational songs to listen to while I was on the race. One of those friends sent me this song. Even though I like the track, now it has a deep sentimental meaning to me.

Listen to Alan Porter’s 12 Songs on Spotify and below: