Printmaker Chris Speakman grew up on the south shore of Massachusetts. He earned a degree in illustration from the University of Hartford's Art School in 1998. After working as a graphic designer for 9 years, Chris chose to devote his full time into his website, Sports Propaganda Art.  The site features original sports-themed screen prints that are heavily influenced by the propaganda posters of the 30's, 40's and 50's. In Chris's opinion the war-time posters capture simplicity in concept and graphic style as well as a strong "us" vs. "them" message.  The game of baseball seemed to lend itself to that style, as many teams have long histories and traditions. To Chris, the merger of the two areas seemed quite natural.

Hired by Dunkin Donuts in February of 2008 to create a series of Boston Red Sox propaganda posters, Chris got the approval from Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association to use team logos and player images for these beautifully designed works of art. This led to the launch of sportspropaganda.com, starting mostly with Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies prints and constantly expanding to other Major League cities.

Chris designs and illustrates each image "by hand" in Adobe Illustrator, and then outputs the separate layers onto a transparency.  From there he uses photo emulsion on a fine mesh screen and transfers the image with a heat lamp. Each color is shot on a different screen and then aligned during printing. The results are striking limited edition posters that impress the
sports fan and art collector alike.

Click here for a step by step on screen printing at home!

Click here to see more of Chris' prints.