How do we make the art?

The Spirit of Franklin Collection aims to celebrate the history and charm of Franklin, TN through a collection of 12 illustrated prints. To do that, we are covering a range of themes like architecture,  historic sites, festivals and favorite local establishments. We are rendering our prints in a variety of styles, taking cues from vintage poster art from the late 1800’s to the mid-1900’s. Our artists draw everything by hand and finish the print-ready art on Apple computers. Here is how we create the art, in case you ever wondered how we do it...

We’ll use one very important historical Franklin icon, the Carnton Plantation, battle field and cemetery as a good case-study. Since this landmark was established in the 1800s, the rendering style needs to resemble art from that era. In the past, we accomplished a 19th century look on a few Spirit of Nashville prints done by Abe Goolsby when he was a staff artist at our design studio. Abe’s masterful pen and ink art gave a distinctive old-world look to our Union Station, State Capitol and Belle Meade Plantation prints.  

For the Carnton design, Joel Anderson (founder of Anderson Design Group and the Spirit of Nashville Collection) used the same old techniques. Starting with reference photos he shot on location, Joel painstakingly rendered an ink cross-hatched drawing. Then he created typography and line art similar that what might have been used back in the 1800s. Joel paid homage to his old buddy Abe by re-using line art of clouds from his 2005 Tennessee State Capitol print.

Once the ink line art is rendered, Joel scanned it into his computer and layered borders, type, and even watercolor washes of color. The final composite was sent digitally to a local printer who produces all of the limited edition prints for Anderson Design Group’s various poster collections.

More Franklin prints are in the works. Stay tuned to see the entire collection as we unveil new prints each month!