Drew Hodges: How I Sold Out—and Cashed In—Designing Posters for a Living

Got your attention? Come on out to this intentionally provocative lecture describing how Drew’s firm, SpotCo, (a NYC based design studio turned entertainment advertising agency) went from doing small time logo design to branding for 9 Pulitzer prize winners and selling 30 million dollars worth of tickets to some of Broadway’s biggest shows. 

We often get the message that commercial work is unfortunately what we all have to do, and the work itself must be deeply compromised.  Meanwhile we imagine our award winning work to be work we do for our cousin Jimmy’s dog grooming business in Baton Rouge. This evening, we’ll talk about taboos—making money, getting work, hanging onto clients, taming evil ones, and the other things everyone likes to read about in the supermarket—celebrity affairs and weight gain.

We will laugh, we will cry, we will talk about branding THE EVENT, and the emotional promise inherent in good graphic design. (But we will NOT discuss how hard it is to make a living in Maine—that’s for another night.)

Oh, and we can sing along to Hamilton.

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Sponsored by Maine College of Art



About Drew

Drew Hodges started Spot Design in 1987, followed ten years later by the launch of full service New York City entertainment advertising agency SpotCo in 1997. SpotCo has sold over 30 million tickets to live entertainment, and created the branding and advertising campaigns for numerous Broadway shows and cultural institutions including Rent, Chicago, The Color Purple, Kinky Boots, Avenue Q, Book of Mormon and Hamilton, among many others. Cultural institutions include The New York Botanical Gardens, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall among others.

Drew is the former president of the board of AIGA NY and most recently, the author of On Broadway: from Rent to Revolution, published April 2016 by Rizzoli Publishing. He has interests in the performing arts, contemporary art, watercolor, sculpture, and mentoring entrepreneurs. He and his husband Peter Kukielski reside in Portland and Cushing, Maine.

When & Where
Wed, Sep 14, 2016 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM EDT
Osher Hall, Maine College of Art
522 Congress Street
Portland, ME 04101