Souvenirs add zing to festival

By Evelyn Gander
Staff Writer

Buying a pin, poster or T-shirt from The Great American Brass Band Festival adds a zing to the weekend event - like a cherry on top of an ice cream sundae.

And that's the treat in store this year for poster buyers: Not one, but three ice cream sundaes, complete with whipped cream, cherry and spoon.

``I hope, if they see it from a distance, first of all, it captures their attention, and hope the design compels them to look a little more closely,'' said Shawn Murdock, senior art director for Trapp Communications, Inc.

That closer look will show three red, white and blue trumpets standing on end with their horns in mid-air. Inside each one - two or three scoops of chocolate, then vanilla, then strawberry, with whipped cream and cherries. And red, white and blue spoons absolutely ready for the dipping.

Trapp Communications of Lexington has produced each festival's poster for the last three or four years.

``This is probably the most fun in terms of the concept,'' said Murdock about the current design, crediting Festival Organizer George Foreman of Centre College.

Once the idea was in place, photographs of a special trumpet followed. Foreman said the red, white and blue ``Uncle Sam's Trumpet'' was borrowed from the collection of Dr. Joe Utley, a retired Spartanburg, S.C., heart surgeon. A collector of trumpets for 40 years, Utley said ``Uncle Sam's Trumpet'' was handcrafted in England.

And a world away in Lexington, Ky., digital computing brought handcrafted artistry into focus.

``What we do,'' said Murdock, ``is we take those separate photographs, and then we have the chocolate, the vanilla and the strawberry photographs. These are all separate photographs. ...''

Combined through a computer. They can even be changed, when the combination doesn't turn out.

``... And in this case, we didn't like the chocolate. So we took one of the vanilla shots and changed the color to chocolate ice cream.''

Then for each came whipped cream, a cherry and a just-the-right-size spoon.

If ice cream sundaes are fanciful, the American Eagle is symbolic.

Designer of the festival's T-shirts and pins for six years, Stuart Arnold said, ``The previous two years, we've had more of a contemporary design, and this year's is a more traditional design.''

Impetus for the idea, he said, came from a poster in Foreman's office - to celebrate a traditional holiday, Fourth of July, 1873 in New York State, Foreman explained.

This year's T-shirts and pins feature the eagle and artwork that recalls the early 1900s, said Arnold, who is marketing director for The Advocate-Messenger.

``And I thought the image of that eagle was a recurring theme.''

As with the poster, the idea was just the start. Arnold said April was spent presenting, modifying the image, altering the colors, ``a lot of trial and effort.''

The T-shirts, pins and posters will be sold at the Chamber of Commerce and Norton Center. In addition, pins will be for sale at downtown locations, including The Advocate-Messenger, Bank One, Farmers National Bank, Central Kentucky Federal Savings Bank and Great Financial Bank. Locations where T-shirts will be on sale include Constitution Square, Centre Shoppes and The Derby Shoppe. Not including sales tax, prices for each item are: festival T-shirt, $13; festival pin, $5; and festival poster, $10.

Murdock hasn't attended the festival yet. This year, he hopes to make June 13-15 a double celebration.

`` ... it starts on my birthday this year.''

As special as a birthday ... The Great American Brass Band Festival.

``It's a one-of-a-kind event as far as we're concerned,'' said Utley.