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Located in Worcester County, MassachusettsFrom Worcester County, MA

Bay State Design Shop

2017–Present

Bay State Design Shop Drink and Draw poster in orange, black and white: Join your pals! Drink, draw, sit a spell. Monday November 27, 6:30 PM EST, Aeronaut Brewing Co.; Fortune favors the kind.
Close-up black-and-white photograph of embroidered BSDS patches with raised white lettering on black.

The Bay State Design Shop is a pretension-free place for New England-area designers—of all disciplines and skill levels—to talk shop, chew the fat, hone their craft, lend a helping hand, and build a creative community.

WHEN A DUMB IDEA TURNS REAL.

Why should the design fun end?

I first met my buddy Erik Weikert at a Dribbble Meetup in Boston sometime back in 2015—we kept in touch, and crossed paths again at another meetup I was spearheading at the Monotype HQ in 2017.Wanting to know if there was a place for designers to talk shop in between real-life events, I fired off an email to Erik, and the rest snowballed…the Bay State Design Shop was born.

A PRETENSION-FREE PLACE FOR DESIGNERS.

The BSDS’s goal? A design space free of ego, pretension, and any of the ivory tower nonsense that’s deleterious not only to the design industry as a whole, but to the human relationships that constitute it. The BSDS is an all-invited potluck supper where we’re building a longer table, not a taller fence.Now, with nearly 1,000 members, BSDS is about all facets of design—talking shop, making friends, getting feedback, lending an ear. Members have hosted design challenges, portfolio reviews, community film nights, and helped one another land jobs. These unexpected—and indeed delightful—consequences are ones we’re eminently grateful our dumb idea could help facilitate.

Email screenshot: Ryan Arruda asks whether a Slack group for Massachusetts-area designers exists and discusses connecting with local designers after a meetup and Monday type challenges.
White BSDS wordmark on black, with Bay State Design Shop written underneath.
Bay State Design Shop recruitment posters.
Bay State Design Shop recruitment posters.
Fortune favors the kind, in four lines of bold white lettering on black.

BUILDING A CLUBHOUSE WITH (JOLLY) GRAVITAS.

Time to recruit.

The community has grown! How to spread the word further, though? Well, we whipped up silly, faux-recruitment graphics, which supplied us with much more gravitas than our dumb clubhouse had any right to claim. But our fledgling group could only be as real as we made it seem, right? That’s the power of branding, I suppose.I cobbled together a logo using one of my favorite typefaces—ITC Serif Gothic. We threw that on stickers, shirts, patches, even purposefully crappy, hand-stamped laminated membership cards.The BSDS evolved its own terminology, too; our official aphorism—FORTUNE FAVORS THE KIND—is meant to be the bedrock of our pretension-free community ethos.

Overlapping BSDS membership cards with black typography on cream paper.
Four round black-and-white sticker designs reading Best Believe, Bay State Design Shop, BSDS and Fortune Favors the Kind.

EARLY BSDS BRAND DESIGN

Bay State Design Shop lettering beside a large B drawn as a red-and-black lattice.
White capital B with broad curved bowls and pointed terminals on a black square.
Hand holding a black BSDS sticker with large white lettering and Bay State Design Shop written underneath.
Red script Join lettering above blue Bay State Design Shop lettering on a textured pale background.
Black BSDS T-shirt on an orange background beneath white Official Merch lettering.
Black-and-white BSDS Type Tips graphic with inward-pointing arrows: Hello friends of Hover! Free type tips, right from the horse’s mouth.
Black T-shirt laid flat with a large white BSDS wordmark.
Overlapping black stickers with large white BSDS lettering.
Bay State Design Shop greeting graphic: Hi there! in white script across a black Massachusetts silhouette, with a smiling face, small hearts and a geometric B on gray.
Round white Bay State Design Shop sticker with bold black lettering and BSDS.co, over a colorful printed background.
Close-up black-and-white photograph of embroidered BSDS patches with raised white lettering on black.

OUT INTO THE REAL WORLD.

Field trips & gatherings.

The BSDS continued to grow by word of mouth, and at each minor membership threshold we’d celebrate—because our dumb idea started resonating with people, and we didn’t expect that. To see 50, 100, 200 people wind up on the roster was so satisfying. That we’re nearly at 1,000 now just warms the cockles of our designer hearts.In time, the BSDS branched out into real-life gatherings—dinners and group outings to local institutions like Massachusetts’ own—and incredible—Museum of Printing. Stranger still, folks started hitting up Erik and me, asking us to tell BSDS’s story—which we excitedly did on Dribbble and at local design venues like Practice Makes and MassArt.

Bay State Design Shop field-trip poster on yellow: Museum of Printing, 15 Thornton Ave., Haverhill, MA; April 28, 2018; tour and printing workshop, noon to 3, only $6.

BSDS FIELD TRIP SCENES

Vintage printing supplies, including metal solvent and oil containers and a green bottle, displayed above a wooden type cabinet.
Printing press and wooden type cabinet displayed in a museum room beneath framed prints.
Close-up of a typewriter printing the words Be St Believe BSDS below other sample text.
Close-up of vintage printing-solvent and oil containers on a museum display shelf.
Large vintage printing press with a black roller and flywheel in a brightly lit museum room.
Two people working together at a printing press in a museum workshop.
Open drawers densely filled with metal printing type and small engraved blocks.
Group photograph outside a brick building beneath the Museum of Printing sign, with several participants holding prints.
Group gathered around a restaurant table with food and drinks.
Long table of people gathering for a meal and drinks inside a restaurant.
Black-and-white photograph of a workshop audience with pink caption text: Community belongs to everyone, @bsds.co.
Two speakers onstage beneath projected Fortune Favors the Kind lettering.
A group poses among rows of red auditorium seats.
Practice Makes graphic: In 2+ years, BSDS has grown into a community of over 750 New England designers! So what do you do when your snowball of an idea starts rolling down the mountain?
Bay State Design Shop Drink and Draw poster in orange, black and white: Join your pals! Drink, draw, sit a spell. Monday November 27, 6:30 PM EST, Aeronaut Brewing Co.; Fortune favors the kind.
Brand New Boston Workshops poster with a black-and-white portrait and orange accents: The hordes of New England have spoken; behind the scenes, stories and tricks; Saturday, 10/27.

WATCH OUT NEW ENGLAND

BSDS vs. DDC

BSDS VS. DDC.

You might as well go big.

The BSDS wanted to throw a public design event. With nothing more than our wits, we threw down, bringing our buddy—and design kindred spirit—Aaron Draplin into Boston.Why are we grinning, you ask? Not only did we get to work with our hero, but our small band of BSDS dreamers managed to sell out four workshop sessions and a nearly 300-person lecture at District Hall in the city’s Seaport District. Pretty darn cool.In BSDS’s truly scrappy spirit, we handled all the logistics, wrangled sponsors, managed promotions, and fully branded the event. Heck, we even hand screen-printed event posters up in Erik’s attic. That’s the power of elbow grease, friends!The largest of thanks to Aaron, our generous sponsors—Hover, Mohawk Paper, Moo, Sketch, Cambridge Printing Company—and the troop of selfless BSDS volunteers.

Aaron Draplin speaking fiasco event poster.
Aaron Draplin speaking fiasco event poster.
Brand New Boston Workshops poster with a black-and-white portrait and orange accents: The hordes of New England have spoken; behind the scenes, stories and tricks; Saturday, 10/27.
Person in a yellow cap presenting colorful printed work to a small group at a workshop table.
Workshop participants seated in rows facing a presenter in a bright room with large windows.
Workshop participants around tables with papers and supplies in a room with large windows.
Small group reviewing work around a table beside large windows, with a presenter in a yellow cap at the left.
People chat under exposed ceiling beams and green lighting.
People converse beside a table in a crowded indoor gathering.
People talking in a crowded indoor design gathering, with colorful artwork displayed on the walls.
Wall-mounted screen reading Join BSDS at BSDS.co in white lettering on black.
People gather in a busy room with exposed ceiling beams.
Large seated audience in a bright room with tall windows and exposed ceiling beams.
Audience facing a projected presentation in a room with tall windows and exposed ceiling beams.
Design workshop poster on an easel, with a portrait above bold white stacked lettering.
Three people pose together at a table, with a bearded person seated in the center.
Hand-lettered whiteboard reading Fortune favors the kind, BSDS × Draplin, with Hover and DDC marks below.
Collection of black-and-white BSDS and Best Believe stickers with a large green Hover sticker.
Signed line drawing of a bearded person wearing a BSDS cap, held over a wooden floor.
Small letterboard reading @BSDS & Draplin, 102618, mounted on a wood-panel wall.
Table display of colorful posters, prints and publications, with a black-and-white ornamental print propped at the back.

DOING GOOD WHILE HAVING A GOOD TIME.

A New England Brew.

We’re lucky to be designers—we’re lucky to have a community to lean on. The BSDS believes that if you can lend a hand, you should lend a hand. Spearheaded by our tireless community advocate Cody Johnston, the BSDS brought A New England Brew to life—a charity poster show hosted at Backlash Beer Co.’s beautiful taproom in Boston. More than two dozen regional designers and illustrators donated their talents, creating incredible posters inspired by New England.Through the generous support of our community, sponsors, and participating designers, we had the privilege of donating proceeds from the event to Artists for Humanity, a local nonprofit empowering underserved Boston-area teens in developing their creativity.

Two black-and-cream printed BSDS cards with ornamental trees, stars, crescent moons and New England lettering.
Colorful posters displayed in two rows along a white gallery wall, with sunlight across the floor.
Two rows of posters along a white gallery wall beside tall windows and a sunlit floor.
A rustic wooden table displays merchandise including t-shirts, coasters, posters, and a large illustrated poster. A white brick wall and a metal door are in the background. Handwritten signs indicate prices and promotions.
Crowd talking around a table of printed artwork inside a gallery.
People gathered beneath exposed ceiling beams at an indoor design event.
Table of prints and publications beside large windows, with two ornamental black-and-white prints propped at the back.
Table displaying colorful posters, publications and a large black-and-white BSDS print.
Table display of colorful posters, prints and publications, with a black-and-white ornamental print propped at the back.
Screen-printing equipment and displayed black-and-white prints in a room with large black arrow shapes on a white wall.