Speakeasy with - Robert Lee and Mark McDevitt

Co-founders of Methane Studios

Methane Studios’ graphic designs are a huge part of Atlanta’s visual culture, showing up in work for Art Papers, Turner Classic Movies and the online culture mag Pine Magazine. But co-founders Robert Lee and Mark McDevitt are best known for their silk-screen concert posters promoting musical acts locally, nationally and internationally. Dave Matthews Band? The White Stripes? Elton John? Ever heard of them? Methane’s done posters for them all. Lee recently spoke with CL about Methane’s history and its upcoming 10-year anniversary, which will be held at Alcove Gallery in Decatur, Saturday, Aug. 23.

How did you form the studio?

I first started in 1998. I used to be in bands. I used to always do my own fliers, basically. Xerox, whatever. My friend Mark McDevitt, who I went to college with, he had moved down here like I did from Ohio. He asked if he could screen print some posters for the band ... He had some experience in college with silk-screen prints so he thought he’d give it a try. He printed for three years in his garage, and then we finally got another printer to help us print the stuff.

How did you start to have the connection between music and visual art?

Mark and I love music. And we love the arts, all the designs, album covers, jazz, blues or rock. Basically we are huge fans of the art that is included in the packaging and we love music. It was kind of the perfect marriage of the two. We’re basically illustrators. We graduated as illustration majors and it was really hard to get work out there as illustrators, so we kind of took this avenue to explore what we wanted to do as far as illustration goes.

Does your work have a specifically Southern vibe or look?

We’re from Ohio. I don’t think we have a Southern look, but some people say that we have a style. I think we have a lot of influences for sure.

What can we expect to see at the anniversary party?

It’s going to be exciting for us. I haven’t looked at the posters we did back in ‘98 since we did them. So it was kind of nice to rummage through those. We’re going to really span the whole collection of everything we’ve done from 1998, the very first poster we did before we were even officially Methane Studios.

What’s the price range?

The prints themselves without the frames will range from $20 to $150. The framed stuff will be a little more expensive because it’s a little more rare: anywhere from $200 to $500.