donaho saddle shop – poster campaign

creative directors: david fowler, ted barton, writers: pat mendelsohn (beans, tender side, apron), rob story (kill), art director: rob story

pat and i did these for my grandfather’s saddle shop. which had been my great-grandfather’s saddle shop. which, before that, had been the b. c. alexander saddle shop and then the r. j. andrews saddle shop. in 1990 it celebrated its 100th anniversary. well, way back in the early 1900s, legend has it that pancho villa’s men would set up midnight meetings with some of alexander’s saddle makers outside of vinegaroon, tx, to exchange money for new saddles. i grew up hearing wild/dangerous stories like this about our family’s historic business. and in the 1970s, i even saw (with my own eyes), men stabbed to death on the sidewalk out in front of the bar next door to the shop. i understood better than anybody how wild the west could be. i knew that my granddad would agree with the tone of this campaign, and he did. he thought the series was fantastic. he was a never ending source of wild and wooly saddle shop tales. and in his mind, the more inappropriate they were, the better. these posters were loved by the customers, too. i still get requests for prints from the families of the ranchers who were patrons. i even think stephen stills took a set home after my grandfather made a saddle for his dog? that’s how i heard it anyway.