The Cleveland Plain Dealer Rock Hall Project: Elvis to Axl
In February, Cleveland Plain Dealer Deputy Design Director Emmet Smith and I set out to do something epic for the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions, to be held on April 14th, 2012 in Cleveland. As a paper we had a slate of great coverage and visual impact planned, with photo galleries and major-display illustration.
We decided to present a complete 'stage' of current and about-to-be-inducted performers. That meant I would draw something in the neighborhood of 550 musicians — 27 induction classes beginning in 1986. Drawing the 'Jam Session From History' was our goal.
The Plain Dealer set aside as many pages as we needed to display the artists. Turns out it was an illustration 22 feet wide. On April 13th, the day before the induction ceremony at Public Hall, we published 541 caricatures of the performing artists across 27 consecutive pages in our magazine. The cover of the Friday magazine is below (with all 541 performing members). Click it to view each induction class, by year.
