Jagmo | The Poster Artist
Chicago native Nels Jacobson, a.k.a. Jagmo, has been creating rock posters for 30 years. He moved to Austin, Texas in the late 1970s and served as promotional manager at Club Foot, an Austin concert hall featuring local bands and touring acts such as U2, REM, BB King, and King Sunny Ade. After leaving Club Foot in 1983, Nels founded Jagmo Studios, a design firm specializing in graphic art for the entertainment industry. During the next ten years, he worked with numerous local performers, promoters, and clubs – receiving the annual Austin Chronicle Music Award for best concert poster five times. He helped organize the 1987 Texas-U.S.S.R. Musicians’ Exchange and as tour manager accompanied the musicians to Helsinki, Leningrad, Kiev, and Moscow. As original art director for the annual South by Southwest Music Conference (SXSW), Nels designed the official logo and oversaw conference graphics from 1987 through 1992. In 2000 he created the logo for Nashville’s Next Fest music festival.
Nels has written a number of articles on poster art, including a two-part piece titled “The Maverick Tradition: Postering in Austin, Texas” that appeared in Wes Wilson’s OFFtheWALL poster journal, and “Armadillos, Pecadillos, and the Maverick Posterists of Austin, Texas” which was published in Prints and Printmakers of Texas, the Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual North American Print Conference. In addition to his graphic design activities, he has been practicing law since 1995. Licensed in California, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas and with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, he practices primarily in the areas of copyright, trademark, and entertainment law, and has written and lectured extensively on these topics.
Nels is a founding board member of the American Poster Institute (sponsor of the Flatstock poster shows), and a director of The Rock Poster Society and the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture. He served for several years on the packaging GRAMMY committees for the San Francisco and Texas Chapters of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and he has been Director of the SXSW Continuing Legal Education program since 1997.
Hi Nels,
How are you doing?
It looks like we have a common love for concert posters! I collect Genesis, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and Mike + The Mechanics posters. I’ve been working on a book to showcase the posters. I see that you’re also a lawyer and have done some research on copyrights/trademarks. I was wondering if we might be able to talk for a few minutes as I’d like to get your thoughts on some of these issues as it pertains to the book I’m working on.
Call me when you get a chance. I look forward to talking with you.
George German
443-202-4679