All Star Press studio joins up with Chicago's pro teams to bring sports, art together
CHICAGO (CBS) -- If you're a sports fan in Chicago, you've probably seen the work of All Star Press - even if you may not know it.
As CBS 2's Matt Zahn reported Saturday night, All Star Press has teamed up with our pro teams to do some pretty cool stuff - bringing the worlds of sports and art together.
"I've always been a really big sports person. Art and sports doesn't always mix," said All Star Press' Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff.
But Tasseff-Elenkoff and All Star Press are doing their best to change that – with everything from Bulls hats to a poster series for the Bears featuring a giant caped bear stomping through a city, and T-shirts for the White Sox.
They seem to be making the mix work.
"The whole point of doing it was to kind of change that landscape – and instead of it being, you know, the same stuff you'd see – guys hitting a ball, or just kind of the general kind of like hotel art, to an extent – changing that and making it more culturally relevant," Tasseff-Elenkoff said. When a brand trusts us to kind of do something with their logo and their colors and create something that's totally new, that's really the exciting aspect."
All Star Press' crossover into the sports world began with a connection with the Bulls. They are now in their sixth year working together, and have created 30 unique hat designs. One has the logo bull with smoke blowing from its nose, another gives the bull some Picassoesque eyes.
"I see the hats every day almost – like you go out. And we did the math – there's about a quarter of a million hats out in the city right now," Tasseff-Elenkoff said. "It's so fun to just see them, and people enjoy them, and they wear them with pride."
While Tasseff-Elenkoff does some of the work himself, he also selects local artists for projects. One such artist is Liz Flores.
"My work is very figurative, and has an abstract element to it – and so how do you make it so that sports fans still know what it is?" Flores said.
Flores created one of the six designs for the White Sox summer T-shirt series, given away to fans at select games. Her "Los White Sox" design ties into Latino Heritage Month.
"I wanted the colors to be a little punchy and like, fun, because it's Latino Heritage Month, and I wanted it to be very celebratory," she said. "The shape on the back – I wanted it to have kind of an ode to like a 90s vintage Sox shirt, and I think we came up with a really cool design."
You can easily see the passion Flores had for the project. Part of that is because the White Sox mean a lot to her and her family.
"I'm a big Sox fan. My family are big Sox fans. So I really felt the pressure. Like I was like, 'I'm so excited.' And then I was like, 'I'm also really nervous about this – wait!'" Flores said. "You know the team means a lot to so many people. I think that's when you've just got to remember to stay true to you and your style, and your style, and like what you want to convey – and everything else just falls into place."
That place is where sports and art converge.
"Sports has a strong community. Art has a strong community. I think there's a lot of overlap in what you're trying to do, is like bringing people together; seeing local artists be supported by a local team. I think that's absolutely wonderful," Flores said. "Working with a sports team too – it makes art more accessible to people. Maybe a gallery might be intimidating for people to come to, but a sports game might not be, right? And so they have the opportunity to collect a piece of your work in a different way."
All Star Press is located at 2775 N. Milwaukee Ave.
