KMS recently did the poster art for the Dark Star Orchestra 2013 Summer Tour.

Spring is in the air! That can mean only one thing, it’s time for the Dark Star Orchestra Spring Jubilee 2013! With a line-up like this:

2 Nights of Dark Star Orchestra
Mickey Hart Band
Yonder Mountain String Band
Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe
The Wailers
The New Orleans Suspects featuring Paul Barrere & Fred Tackett Melvin Seals & JGB
The Werks
Rumpke Mountain Boys
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong
Cabinet
BigEaR

What else needs to be said? Except buy a T-shirt with the KMS artwork on it!

Kevin signs one of the many pieces of art that he gives away to charitable events and fundraisers every year. This poster is of the Snowville Creamery Maiden with the title, “Grass Grazed Revolution”. Milk to the People!

Kevin did the artwork for the new Athens County Visitors Guide produced by the Athens County Visitors Bureau and Tourism Center. The artwork comes from a painting Kevin did that captures the diversity of Athens, Ohio. If you look Close enough you may even see Kevin in the painting.

Check out Lorraine Walker’s (Silver Bridge) new delivery van. Seems like we are starting to see more KMS artwork on the road!

The Psylodelic Gallery, a museum that focuses on the music, art, culture, and literature of the Psychedelic era is working to provide educational programming for children and families by encouraging free thought and open expression.

It is with these same ideals of free and creative expression that we begin this project–a chance to inspire and foster life and art in a place that so desperately needs it, rural Appalachia. We are turning to you to help us in this endeavor, with your support, we will work to promote and improve arts education in our area and to continue to remind people just how influential the psychedelic era was and is to our world.

You can learn more about the Psylodelic Gallery and some of the programming we have in store by visiting our Kickstarter page. While you are there, donate to help fund some of the programming we have in store.

Grand Opening is slated for March 22, 2013 in conjunction with the Fur Peace Ranch’s opening weekend of workshops.

The 13th Annual Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) Conference is February 16-17, 2013. OEFFA is a membership-based, grassroots organization, dedicated to promoting and supporting sustainable, ecological and healthful food systems. If you believe in sustainable farming you should attend. Check it out: OEFFA Conference.

The Athens Community Food Initiative is a great program. CFI assists individuals and families to grow food, develop cooking skills, and reduce their health risks by eating whole foods. Our work is supported by regional farmers and food producers, partnering non-profits, local government and foundations. KMS recently created some new poster art for the program.

Kevin just completed his 31st Halloween design! Where does the time go? This year’s theme is a play on the “Day of the Dead.” And it comes in two different colors, green and orange. Also, check out this nice article about Kevin in The Post

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The Athens Area has a brand new distillery producing some of the finest gin and vodka. Here is the logo artwork for Dancing Tree Distillery.

KMS recently did a fun woodland scene for a wedding announcement for some friends of the studio. We thought we would share it with you. A good time was had by all!.

KMS has done several posters for the Fab Faux at the Keswick Theater. Here are some of them:

KMS did the 2012 poster art for The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) annual conference. These folks are dedicated to promoting and supporting sustainable, ecological and healthful food systems. If you are interested in farming or gardening you should check them out!

KMS did the poster art for the 2012 Midwest Reggae Festival. The MWRF is put on by our good friend Packy Malley.

KMS did the poster artwork for the 2012 Miami Valley Music Festival. Be sure to check out some of our favorite bands, The Spikedrivers and Ekootisk Hookah.

KMS is really excited about the New Riders of the Purple Sage coming to Jackie O’s on July 26, 2012.

KMS has worked with NRPS on a number a projects, most recently on their latest CD, 17 Pine Ave.

Kevin painted the CD cover of 17 Pine Ave, watch the following time lapse video of the painting process!

Kevin sat down with Sarah Brumfield from The Athens Messenger to talk about the labels he has designed for many of the local food companies.

Check out the video

Ohio Brew Week ended with a huge storm that left the whole county without power. Despite the weather everyone enjoyed themselves. KMS did the poster for the 2012 Ohio Brew Week, check it out.

KMS recently did the artwork for the Dark Star Jubilee Festival which is coming to Legend Valley August 31st through September 2nd. Jorma Kaukonen is on the bill. We’ll be sure to see you there!

KMS recently did the CD cover design  for John “Hurl” Hurlbut’s latest solo project, The Maui Tapes. The CD is a collection originals and covers that convey John’s spirit. Thanks to Vanessa Kaukonen for a fantastic photograph for the cover!

KMS recently did a series a bottle labels for Jackie O’s Brewery, a Athens based micro-brewery and pub.

Wow, what a huge canvas to work with. Kevin Morgan Studio did the artwork for the new bus line, GoBus, that travels from Athens to Cincinnati and Columbus.  The design was over 100 foot long and at least 5 foot tall, close to 500 square feet of space to fill, whew. It is a landscape of Southeast Ohio with it’s  rolling hills and the destinations of Cincinnati and Columbus in the distance. Of course, we put the GoBus logo right in the middle to get the most attention.

The GoBus Intercity Bus Service is a collaborated effort between Ohio Department of Transportation, The City of Athens, and Hocking Athens Perry Community Action. The project is part of a nationwide effort to connect rural areas and urban centers that result in connections of greater regional, statewide, and national significance.

The service was initiated by the Federal Transit Administration and the Ohio Department of Transportation. The City of Athens received funding from these organizations to manage and promote this service to help link Athens, Ohio and neighboring rural communities to the cities of Columbus, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio. They also received federal stimulus money to purchase three new deluxe motor coaches to operate along these routes. The City of Athens appointed Hocking Athens Perry Community Action, a non-profit corporation dedicated to the needs of the region, as the project administrator.

The buses run each route twice daily with connections to Greyhound’s nationwide system and the Port Columbus International Airport providing Southeast Ohio residents with greater access and mobility.

The studio was quite excited to design the new GoBus themes and had a great pleasure working with Carolyn Conley and Lantz Repp andf the GoBus team.

Friend of the Studio, Roger Steffens, is pictured here with a tin of Ras Hurl’s “Blessings” Tea. In the background you can see posters designed by Kevin for Roger’s multimedia presentation, Life of Bob Marley. The photo was taken by our friend Steve when he was visiting Roger’s studio and going through his archives.

Roger is perhaps best known for his reggae archives, in particular his archives of Bob Marley. He travels the world lecturing on The Life of Bob Marley at hundreds of venues including the Smithsonian Institution, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Experience Music Project, American Film Institute, Red Rocks-Denver, University of the West Indies and University of Technology (Kingston, Jamaica), Schomburg Center for Black Research of the New York Public Library; Missouri History Museum, and countless Universities.

Roger has enjoyed Kevin’s Reggae festival posters so much he included some of his favorite in his book, Reggae Scrapbook.

Here is the Amazon write up for Reggae Scrapbook.

Guiding us on this colorful book-length journey is one of the men who introduced reggae to America and helped rock the world with its syncopated beat, Roger Steffens. Through lectures, books, magazine articles, radio, and television, Steffens has shared his knowledge of reggae from coast to coast. He is the world’s premier archivist and collector of reggae memorabilia, and brings the best of his in-depth interviews with such reggae legends as Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, and “Toots” Hibbert to this unique scrapbook.

Roger also added Kevin’s artwork to his book, “World of Reggae”. A number of Kevin’s Reggae posters can be viewed in his portfolio of Event Posters.

Kevin was bitten by the Reggae bug early in his life. And for 30+ years he has been designing t-shirts, posters and album covers that express his love and devotion to the music and it’s culture. Here is an excerpt from an interview that did recalling his Bob Marley connection:

“Sinbad’s Reggae Records was opened in Athens by a guy named Phil Alloy, must have been in the late 70′s. One of the first Reggae record shops this side of the Mississippi. Phil and his wife Valerie were into Reggae before anyone knew what Reggae was. Image Graphics was right down the street and when Phil landed a contract with Bob Marley to do t-shirts and merchandising for Bob’s US tours, he had us do the art and printing. I was really blessed with the opportunity, they liked my stuff and we ended up doing a lot of work for not only Bob, but Rita Marley, The Melody Makers, Tuff Gong, Neville Garrick and more. Phil and I designed the original Bob Marley Museum logo, which is still in use today and our t-shirt “Tribute to the King” is part of the centerfold collage on Bob’s Legend Album. I could go on and on, but I have spent some great time in Jamaica, met most the Marley Family and still work with Phil today.”

Legend was the twelfth album by Bob Marley & the Wailers released in 1984. It is the best-selling reggae album of all-time, with over 14 million copies sold in the United States and approximately 25 million copies sold globally, the album was ranked number 46 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. So, if you think about it, there are literally millions of people who own an image of Kevin’s artwork. Pretty cool.

On the inside cover, in the compilation of the Bob Marley merchandise, you can see Kevin’s design which appears on a t-shirt that was designed for Sinbad Reggae Records and Tuff Gong. The image, “Tribute to the King”, was produced to commemorate the one year anniversary of Bob’s passing.

Here is a picture of the “Tribute to the King” t-shirt being worn by a concert goer at Reggae Sunsplash in 1981. If you look real close you can see the stage backdrop that Kevin also created.

Kevin is best known for his graphic design and fine art, but he has worked in other mediums as well. One of those mediums is sculpture. One of Kevin’s newest sculpture can be viewed at the Fur Peace Ranch. Originally titled “Jorma” the FPR staff have come to call it “The King of Strings”. I’s a towering metal sculpture that was created from one piece of heavy gauged steel, cut and welded together. It is unfinished which gives it a nice rusty patina. Kevin and his wife Janet are pictured with “The King of Strings.”

Kevin has done several wooden totems. Here’s an old picture of Kevin and some hand-carved wooden totems he created about 10 years ago.

If you are in uptown Athens you can spot these totems on Court Street. Oh, bet you can’t guess who made Kevin’s buck skinned suit. That’s right, he did.