Rock Star Scientist posters

Etsy seller Megan Katasuskas offers stately and elegant "rock star scientist" posters, including those above honoring Niels Bohr and Nikola Tesla. Rock Star Scientist Posters

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Megan Katauskas

First, thank you to David Pescovitz for featuring my designs here on boingboing.net. With my first baby due in just two days and expenses piling up, it could not have come at a better time.

Second, thank you to everyone supporting my work with their purchases. Each order, no matter how small, helps TREMENDOUSLY, so really and truly – thank you!

Also, I thought I’d throw together a quick list answering some of the more frequent issues brought up in comments and emails I’ve been receiving, so here you go:

1. The exclusion of women from this collection was not intentional, it’s just how it happened to turn out. I am designing more posters that will most definitely include some influential women of science. (If you have a favorite scientist or poster idea, let me know:)

2. On February 16, 2010, when explaining the project I was working on to some friends over a nice Thai dinner, Janessa Gursky, creative director at Evolve Design Group, referred to my designs as “rock star posters for scientists” and I loved how it sounded. Neither of us had seen Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and I did not find out that “Rock Star Scientist” was already a phrase from this movie until another friend of mine let me know after I had already named the series.

3. It has been pointed out that my Bohr design features the Rutherford planetary model as opposed to the actual Bohr model. Simply put: I did not know this. But I have no problems with it as, not only do I consider it more visually appealing, but also more easily recognizable and it still represents Bohr’s work and his contributions to understanding atomic structure.

(Also, I really don’t see my Bohr design as a connect-the-dots-swastika as one commenter above suggests, and it certainly was not intended. I chose the number of electrons because eight is my husbands favorite number and I liked the symmetry of the design)

4. After costs for printing, a percentage to Etsy, and Paypal fees, I do not make a huge profit. To those that understand this and support my work, thank you. To others that complain about the price – please have some compassion for an independent artist just trying to pay the bills and notice that I offer sizes for every budget, all the way down to just $18 for a set of 5 mini posters.

5. Sorry, I currently do not offer t-shirts, but I am looking into the best quality and most affordable options to put them into production.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at meg.kat.art@gmail.com or through my shop at http://meganlee.etsy.com :)

- Megan Katauskas
Dorkomatic

Truly beautiful.
I wonder what designs would suit other “Rock Star Scientist” types: Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Dirac, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Pauli, Planck, etc…
Sekino

For a second, I thought it was the poster for the actual rock band ‘Tesla’…

@Syphax- That’s absolutely brilliant!!
IMoriarty

@sapere_aude Totally agreed. Grabbed the link opened it with the full intent of purchasing the Tesla Print, saw the price, closed the tab.

While I recognize an artist’s need to support oneself, asking $255 for a poster print without frame is a more than a little excessive, and I’d put it squarely in the conspicuous consumption category.

~I
- Anonymous
  
  The 8×12 poster print is only $25. A lot of the money goes into the cost of printing – I’d say the artist also deserves something for her time!
  
  @RandomJohn, while the phrase “rockstar scientist” does appear on the poster in the movie, I don’t think these posters correlate in any other way to the movie posters. While the base subject is the same, hese are a completely different style and design from the cartoon images. (as cool as those may be, too!)
  - a random John
    
    Anon,
    
    I agree that the style is totally different. Just wondering if that was the inspiration for this.
a random John

The recent movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs featured its own Rock Star Scientist! posters. In addition to an image of a generic rock start scientists there was a poster of Tesla and one of Philo T. Farnsworth.

Hard to imagine given that the wording is exactly the same and the inclusion of Tesla that this isn’t inspired by the movie.

Unless of course this predates the movie, in which case the movie is ripping this idea off.
mccrum

I would easily buy a t-shirt of these. Probably one for everyone in the family.
Anonymous

The headline immediately made me think of Buckaroo Banzai. Very cool.
AirPillo

Wonderful things! Very wonderful things!
quazi

Richard Feynman – bongos with with a Feynman diagram on each drum head.
Anonymous

There’s a similar series from the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_unDHozJWYrw/Spaxil-Z0hI/AAAAAAAAAM0/ejsts07P8aQ/s1600-h/cloudy_posters.jpg
MadRat

Sooo… art deco… must.. have… Tesla shirt… *hypnotized*
Art

Well done, indeed!
syphax

While I have some folks’ attention, let me do some market research: Please list your top 3 scientists/inventors you’d like to see on a Science Jersey. Don’t waste a vote on Tesla; he’s a lock.
theboredom

There is nothing wonderful about that vertically compressed type used to designate the year. Yuck!
- Anonymous
  
  That typography works perfectly. Lay off the coffee :)
jimboo

As a chemist, I know and admire Bohr’s pioneering work. But for those who know history as well, it’s easy to see how connecting the dots in his poster would form a swastika.
- SonOfSamSeaborn
  
  A swastika? The symbol that the Nazi Particle used?
  
  I’ll let myself out.
smegoid

Beautiful! Do this for luminaries of “insert your discipline here*” and you have a customer.

*Psychology: Give me a William James, Skinner or Milgram and I’ll give you my wallet.
Matt Staggs

ZOMG I LOVED TESLA “MECHANICAL RESONANCE” CHANGED MY LIFE! LITTLE SUZI!
syphax

These are awesome.

I thing one of my kids asked for Christmas this year was a “Science Jersey” – a sports-themed jersey (pick a sport) with a scientist’s name and some relevant number on the back. This was after we shamed him by asking him to name 5 athletes, then 5 scientists- he came up with 5, barely.

I’ve been seriously considering making and selling such shirts. Yes, I know I could use a site like zazzle.com, but I’d like to use authentic (more or less) sport jerseys, not just t-shirts. Think Tesla on a San Diego Chargers-like shirt.

It’s a low barrier-to-entry business, and one with a relatively small market, so if someone beats me to the punch, I won’t cry about it- just please send me, if you got the idea from here, some free shirts!
- AirPillo
  
  put me down for two
- Anonymous
  
  you’re on — how ’bout a jersey w/ the name on the back: SAGAN and the player number: 1,000,000,000 ?
- David Pescovitz
  
  Great idea! Please email me if you end up doing it. (And I agree about shirt quality.)
smegoid

Err that sucks. Guess boing boing doesn’t display text in brackets. Making my last comment look like there was a glitch in the matrix mid sentence.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It’s this thing called html. When you summon it, you have to control it.
sapere_aude

Want entire set.

Can’t justify frivolous expense.

Sometimes it sucks to be fiscally prudent.
ike

I love the stylized poster look, and the concept, but my nit to pick is that even if it’s more difficult to come up with an illustrative and visually catchy line-art representation of the Bohr model of the atom, substituting in the Rutherford (planetary) Model is not a great way to represent Bohr.
- magista
  
  Ah, you just beat me to it. Just finished teaching the atomic physics unit last week, and commented that Rutherford’s model is still the atom for 90% of the population. Sigh.