Little Print Shop of Horrors 2023
As the shop doors close firmly shut for another year, we reflect on another frighteningly good spell for Little Print Shop of Horrors. As well as having a lot of fun generating new ideas in our working groups, creating some unique and terrifying twists to Netflix-inspired pieces of art, this year’s entries raised over £1,000 from poster sales for our charity of the year Humans MCR.
Creative Spark Director Neil Marra said, ‘This year’s Little Print Shop has been a huge success. Since COVID we haven’t really been able to invest as much time and effort into the initiative as we’d have liked, but this year we wanted to give it a really big push! It was great to see everybody get behind the project for our partnership with Humans MCR. I wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who’s bought a poster, to all the Sparks, and to our amazing partners and contributors. I’m already excited for the re-opening of the shop in 2024’
To keep a competitive nature amongst teams, we held an internal competition for the most popular print! Without further ado, onto the internal competition winners. In joint first place the posters with the most sales are Killing Eve and Jurassic Park – congratulations to both designers! The designer behind Killing Eve is Spark’s very own Senior Designer, Alex Phipps. When speaking about the design Alex commented ‘Our teams inspiration came from Villanelle’s iconic pink dress… It was designed to be a subtle twist on a powerful and feminine character’.
Pat Thomas, artist and illustrator based in South East London, is a trusted partner of Spark and was the designer behind the Jurassic Park poster. Pat chose this iconic film as this year marks 30 years since its release. When asked about his design inspiration, he commented ‘I was overwhelmed by the grandeur and suspense generated by the scene in which the T-Rex is revealed. The clunkiness of the 90s SFX, I also felt complimented my approach.’ Pat’s design was certainly a hit with our customers, contributing much needed funds for the work Humans MCR do to alleviate food poverty across Manchester.
We received this message of thanks from Humans MCR founder, Lewey Hellewell:
‘We are immensely grateful for the support received from the Little Print Shop of Horrors initiative. When so many are facing the uncertainty of where their next meal will come from, every penny donated has a significant impact. The funds raised through this creative project will enable us to provide nutritious meals to families in need across Greater Manchester, ensuring they have access to the basic human right of adequate food. Collaborations like this not only raise essential funds but also awareness and hope for the future.’
Finally, we would like to give a shout out to the Spark team for taking part. Alex, Emillie, Kate, Will, Carl & Tom, massive thanks for your designs and of course to our external contributors, acclaimed artists and illustrators Andy Smith, Pat Thomas, Sara Janika on behalf of ‘Ahoy Studio’, James Poole, Jordan Yates and Woody Woods for their incredible contributions. And another huge thank you to Blueprint Creative Media who have printed all the posters.
The shop may be closed for 2023 but we’ll be back in 2024 with yet more spine-tingling Halloween inspired prints. Not only is this initiative raising money for a good cause year on year, but it provides us at Spark HQ with a chance to work together with colleagues we don’t always get a chance to work with whilst having fun and sharing in some healthy competition!
Look out for Little Print Shop of Horrors re-opening in October 2024. If you’d like to take part next year, please contact [email protected].
