PLAZM

04/01/2026

Cheers to Fort George Brewery and a new Pilsner brand

Our friends at Fort George Brewery just celebrated their nineteenth anniversary. They wrote about that recently on their Substack, which you should subscribe to if you like the Pacific Northwest and beer.

We have loved the process of branding and helping Fort George over the years as they have grown into a mighty force of Northwest brewcraft. We had a lot of fun more recently creating their new Pilsner brand. We wrote about the graphic development of Fort George Pilsner in a prior post. Since the brand launch we have wrapped a number of vehicles with the Pilsner branding. Just wanted to share these cool photos of a new sprinter van from Red Dwarf Graphx in Astoria.

Find Fort George Pilsner where fine beer is sold. If you are lucky enough to live in Oregon, it can be shipped directly to your door. That makes for a good mail day.

03/28/2026

Dissent is Patriotic

Not only is dissent patriotic, dissent protects democracy.

Saturday is a nationwide call to peaceful protest, against tyranny, for freedom, for government of the people, by the people, for the people. Over 3,000 events have been organized in all 50 states. Visit nokings.org to find one near you.

Poster design by

Download a PDF of this poster here if you want to use it out on the street:
https://bit.ly/4s34pCi

Buttons available at

03/24/2026

The End of War.
It’s from a classical quote.*
It’s the name of a book.
It’s got a nice ring to it.

And it’s an appealingly unspecific concept. Does it refer to the end of, say, the current U.S. invasion of Iraq? Does it mean the end of all current wars? Does it connote one big happy globalized culture? Does it imply the annihilation of all war, forever—and if that is the case, should it not rather invoke a calm slide into peace?
When I conceived of The End of War as a project for Plazm and exhibition, I was drawn to the fluidity of the phrase, to its openness and uncertainty. Could I, personally, even imagine what a war-free world might be like? If I presented the phrase “The End of War” to other artists, how would they interpret it? The only way to find out was to ask them.

We asked about a dozen artists, writers, performers, and designers to respond to the concept of The End of War. Some created new works specifically for the project, while others discovered that it resonated with aspects of their past or current practice. Our contributors sent work from around North America and the world, and we thank them deeply for participating.
—

* Or in any case, a quote attributed to a classical philosopher, an attribution about which there is some controversy.

Featuring contributions from:
Lettering & intro spread design by Mansi Shah
Rebeca Méndez & Adam Eeuwens, Los Angeles
Lydia Yuknavitch, Portland design by Susie Nielsen
Art Chantry, Seattle
Letter Doulas bu Kristen Tsiatsios, Seattle; design by Susie Nielsen
David Tartakover, Tel Aviv
Coffee Marvin Bell, Iowa City; design by Susie Nielsen
Death Drive by Magdalen Powers, Portland ; design by
Alex Lilly, Portland
Jamie McMurry, Los Angeles/Chile; design by Susie Nielsen
An Apology to the Vietnamese and Iraqis Marvin Bell, Iowa City; design by Susie Nielsen
Devora Newmark, Montréal; design by Susie Nielsen
Sue Coe, New York
Yoko Ono, New York

The End of War
Curated by and from Plazm No. 29, published in 2007.

A few print edition copies are in the shop.

03/22/2026

Live panel discussion & film screening of Graphic Means at Portland Art Museum's Tomorrow Theater

Hands-on print design and production fueled the Bauhaus design revolution, the Mad Men era of advertising—and the beginnings of Plazm magazine. We're happy to be included in this important film about graphic design history, and to a panel discussion at the Portland Art Museum's Tomorrow Theater.

Film screening & panel discussion

Director Briar Levitt joins April Greiman, Dan Rhatigan, and Plazm's Joshua Berger (all of whom are in the film) for a discussion moderated by Michael Ellsworth.

Thursday, April 9
Doors 6:30pm, Event 7pm
Tickets $15
Get tickets & watch trailer: https://bit.ly/4brTVrg

03/20/2026

Fort George is celebrating their nineteenth birthday this month. We are so happy to have been able to collaborate with this brand since the beginning and witness as they have evolved into a truly mighty force of Northwest brewcraft. Here's to 19 more!

As part of the celebration Fort George Brewery is releasing a new batch of Sunrise OPA (Oatmeal Pale Ale). The 12 oz. six pack is a redesign of our original 16 oz. 4 packs which was created in 2012. ⠀
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The illustration combines a sunrise motif with the cellular cross-section of an oat and was created by Sze Wa Cheung, our intern at the time. The packaging won a Rosey Award from that year.

03/18/2026

The Volumes Design Library is slated to open later this spring on the second floor of the historic J.K. Gill Building at 426 SW Harvey Milk Street in downtown Portland.

You can read an interview in the latest issue of the Portland Mercury for the Spring Arts edition.

Volumes isn’t a library where you have to be quiet.

02/27/2026

Lots of good stuff in Plazm magazine, issue no. 25 including Our Favorite Clinton, a 9-page series of drawings by .long_ (featuring our first ever centerfold), an Amateur’s Guide to Pinball by Nate Schwartz with photos by Katie Collins, and a story about media activists ®™ARK by .

A handful of copies of the print edition are available in our shop. The issue was art directed by

02/27/2026

Flashback to Plazm magazine, issue 25

In the year 2000, became our first-ever guest art director.

One of the stories in the issue centers around a group of picnickers at Bagby hot springs in the Mt. Hood national forest who experience a Bigfoot encounter. Pablo graphically incorporated Bigfoot into his designs throughout the pages of Plazm 25. Bigfoot is played in the issue by Todd Haynes.

Picnicers: Jon Hart, Patrick Long, Malia Jensen, Camela Raymond. Unseen picnicer/videographer: Steve McDougal. Help: James Yu, Mike Brophy, Jon Raymond, Storm Tharp. Bigfoot: Todd Haynes. Special thanks: Sam Coomes, JenJen, Safari Lounge.

A handful of copies of the print edition are available in our shop. Link in bio or direct link here: https://plazm.square.site/product/plazm-25/19?cs=true&cst=custom

Pablo also designed an 18 x 24" screen printed poster for the release. There are five of these remaining. Link in bio or direct link here: https://plazm.square.site/product/plazm-25-bigfoot/65?cs=true&cst=custom

02/25/2026

Interstellar Gestures
30 Paintings / 30 Stamps

New collaboration with Cuban-Colombian-American artist . We first met Pablo in the mid-90s. We collaborated on type design projects and he was our guest art director for issue 25 of Plazm magazine.

We invited him to be part of our limited edition stamp sheet Artist Series with .

Released as part of our celebration of Black History Month Pablo made the Artist Series No. 62 sheet in tribute to the late great painter, Jack Whitten. In an interview on The Portland Stamp Company website Pablo talks about his inspiration for these stamps, the painful process of starting a project, and the idea of the cosmos and its relationship to art.

Artist Series No. 62 with Pablo A. Medina

8.5 x 11” sheet with 30 stamps
Digital offset print
Limited to a signed, numbered edition of 100
Suitable for framing
$35

The sheets are available from Pablo or via the Artist Series link in The Portland Stamp Co bio.

02/19/2026

Tastebud has been a fixture in Portland for over two decades, providing delicious artisanal, wood fired pizza and other delicacies. They began with a mobile wood fired oven who you can still find at the Portland Farmers Market, when in season. We have watched Tastebud support local farmers, artists, and community organizations throughout as long as we have known them.

Recently Tastebud made a common sense statement on their website supporting their neighbors and in opposition to ICE and the lawless activities we have seen them engage in over the past few months. We encourage you to not only patronize Tastebud, but to support any business that stands up for human decency in the face of fascism and divisive politics. Their recent statements are clear evidence of the values they place on the community they live in and the neighbors they are willing to support. This could be a controversial statement, but we think Tastebud might be the best pizza in town.

Tastebud catered our Back Room event in 2008, pulling up their mobile oven outside Podkrepa Hall. Found a few photos from Mark and his team outside Podkrepa Hall prepping food. Also showing an image of the empty room, then full with guests for the conversation. Last image is of our musical guest with Fred Nemo dancing. A recording of the conversation between .snyder.curator can be found on our website here: https://plazm.com/backroom/

We created the original Tastebud logo and branding, signage for their original brick and mortar SE Portland location.

Thank you Tastebud, for serving the community and standing up for common sense values.

02/15/2026

Important conversation, beautiful work

“Thank you for hearing my film and for seeing the sound”