Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Davis.
Hi Mike, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Burlesque Of North America began as a collective of graphic designers, graffiti writers, printers, and counter-culture enthusiasts from Minneapolis. In the late ’90s and early ’00s, we were working on our graffiti magazine called “Life Sucks Die,” which became a bit of a hit. Through the connections we made with the magazine, people started asking us if we could design their album covers, concert posters, logos, etc. As this sort of work picked up and the magazine slowed down, we shifted our focus towards design and screen printing and realized we needed a name that wasn’t “The guys who do the graffiti magazine.” After thousands of posters, logos, art exhibits, events, and parties over the past 20+ years, we’re still here looking ahead to more creative work in the beautiful city of Minneapolis.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
What are these smooth roads you speak of? Not familiar at all. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to work on some truly exciting projects with some of our favorite bands, visual artists, friends, and clients, but it’s been an epic journey to get here. From leaky ceilings to last minute design changes to equipment malfunctions to ripped screens to lost packages to suing someone for copyright infringement to that whole 2020 thing to things we shouldn’t mention here to even leakier ceilings… we’ve weathered the storms.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We’re mostly known for our screen printed posters and art prints. When we first got started, our focus was on designing and screen printing concert posters for shows around the Twin Cities at venues like First Avenue, Turf Club, and Triple Rock Social Club, then we began working directly with bands like Arcade Fire, Phish, and Chromeo as well as labels like Rhymesayers, Stones Throw, and Deathwish.
After building recognition for our poster designs, people took note of the quality of our print work and soon began hiring us to screen print their designs. This led to building relationships with groups like Upper Playground and The Seventh Letter as well as artists such as Aaron Horkey, Tara McPherson, John Baizley, and Jacob Bannon.
We continue to push ourselves to produce the highest quality screen printed posters and art prints possible, constantly exploring new techniques and materials.
Beyond screen printing, we’re also incredible proud of the numerous art exhibits we featured at our gallery CO Exhibitions which was open from 2010-2020, the Dre Day parties we started in 2003 which expanded to cities all across the planet, designing and printing our Refugees Welcome stickers, which we printed thousands of and distributed everywhere, helping raise money for the UN Refugees Agency and earning us press coverage on NBC News and beyond, and having the opportunity to celebrate our 20th anniversary in 2023 at our friends Modist Brewing’s beautiful event space.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
We love the endlessly supportive creative communities which have allowed us to flourish and continue working here in town, the long history of funk, rock, punk, and rap music grown here in town, the wide variety of outstanding food, the State Fair, the Minneapolis Sound, and the overlapping scenes and subcultures that mix and mingle together. Not too crazy about the cops or the potholes.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://burlesquedesign.com
- Instagram: @brlsq
- Youtube: @BurlesqueOfNorthAmerica
