Sergio Membrillas turns a year of gig posters into a collectable newspaper

In a moment when concert promotion is increasingly compressed into Instagram grids and fleeting stories, illustrator Sergio Membrillas is doing something deliberately slower. The Valencia-based artist has just released a newspaper-format publication bringing together every band poster he designed over the past year, turning what were once temporary, often digital-first artworks into something you can hold, unfold, and keep.

The publication functions as an archive of a specific period in Membrillas' practice. Inside, posters for indie acts sit alongside work for more widely known artists such as Róisín Murphy, U.S. Girls, and Dry Cleaning. They span continents as well as scenes, from London, Stockholm, and Chicago to shows closer to home in Valencia. Seen together, the collection reveals both the consistency and range of his visual language and the cultural work that these posters do beyond the night of the gig itself.

"It's a newspaper-format publication that brings together all the band posters I've designed over the past year, functioning almost like an archive of that period of my work," Sergio explains.

He admits that he's long been fascinated by the fleeting nature of posters and how they exist for a specific moment before disappearing. "At the same time, I really enjoy seeing everything together, as a body of work," Sergio explains. "The newspaper format felt like the perfect container for that." There's also a clear editorial reference point. Sergio cites Interview Magazine as a long-standing influence, and that spirit carries through in the layouts' scale and confidence.

That format allows the posters to be experienced at their original size, which is something that's often lost when work lives primarily online. While it looks like a newspaper, the object itself has been carefully considered. It's printed on 160 gsm paper with high production values, and it's designed to last. If a particular poster connects with you, you can simply pull it out and frame it.

The timing of the project is also no accident. Sergio describes a growing frustration with how rarely posters are printed now, even within music culture.

"Today, promoters rarely print posters anymore, as most of the focus is on digital promotion," he says. Yet when they do appear in physical form, the response is telling. Bands enjoy seeing their work in person, and fans often try to take it home. For Sergio, who grew up with posters as objects you lived with, the publication is a way of reviving that experience in a form that feels "realistic, affordable, and relevant now."

Asked if he has favourites, Sergio hesitates. Each piece is tied to a specific moment, band, or place, which makes choosing difficult. Still, the posters for U.S. Girls and Chris Cohen stand out, both for the music and for how naturally the visuals came together.

Though it's clearly his passion, Sergio reveals that working in the concert poster medium hasn't been without its challenges. Information overload, logos, and practical constraints are familiar territory, but he notes that mutual trust has been a constant across collaborations, from recent projects to earlier work with bands like Future Islands, Wilco, and Beck.

Trust has no doubt shaped his approach, as he has moved from focusing on meeting expectations to prioritising intuition and creative freedom, particularly in an industry where budgets are often tight.

In gathering these posters into a single, humble-but-elevated object, Sergio is doing more than documenting his own work. He's making a pretty compelling case for print's continued relevance as a tactile, democratic, and culturally resonant medium. In newspaper form, these posters live again beyond the scroll. It's certainly a theme we've been seeing more of this year, and one that we hope sticks around in 2026.