Cowboy Noir

One in four cowboys in the American West was Black, and almost none of the imagery says so. Cowboy Noir puts that record back in the visual language it was erased from — vintage rodeo bills, wanted posters, concert one-sheets — and runs it across figures a century apart: Bill Pickett and Bose Ikard alongside Beyoncé, Shaboozey, Lil Nas X, the Compton Cowboys.

Every poster carries a subject, a claim and a line of record. Heavy wood type, halftone portraits, star rules, one signature lockup. Print-scaled at 11x17 and 24x36 so the series could hang as a set in the room.

Creative Director, end to end. 20 posters designed as one system, print production coordinated, the New York activation built around the series, and a popular step dance I taught the room, on a night I hosted.

The reference wall: rodeo bills, dance-hall cards, wanted posters, tour one-sheets. Where the typographic rules came from before a single poster was drawn.

The New York night the series was made for.

Wrote the concept and the copy, researched every subject, art-directed the posters and ran the print production. The research is the part that took longest — each poster makes a factual claim about a real person, so each one had to hold up.

Then I planned the night internally with my team, ordered the decor and installed it with a team member and a crew we led, built the poster wall, taught the room a popular step dance, worked the drink concepts with the bar, and hosted the event.

Twenty-six posters in a week meant splitting the wall. Off the brief and the copy plan, JT Thigpen took seven layouts, Manny Knighton took ten, and Taylor Schmidt on the Pernod side took four plus the drink menu; three were mine, with Linda Day proofing every line inside the designs.