American poster for festival

Shrewsbury's Folk Festival has enlisted the support of a well-known printers from America to design new posters for the event this month.

Hatch Show Print, based in Nashville, designed the posters for sale at the festival last year and they were so popular that directors enlisted the company's help again.

Formed in 1879, Hatch Show Print is one of the oldest letter press printers in America.

The posters are all hand-produced using letters and imagery from their own library.

The festival posters are a three-colour design, which is the maximum Hatch will allow. It means each poster has been individually passed though a press three times.

They are available to buy from Fish Records before the festival on August 22 to 25, which is being held at Shrewsbury's West Midlands Show ground in Berwick Road.

Neil Pearson, a director of the folk festival, said: "Hatch Show has built up a reputation for doing music posters.

"We had one last year which we were really happy with and we want to keep it going as a tradition for the festival.

"They are not used for publicity but to sell them. Some people collect Hatch Show posters but most will go to people coming to the festival.

"A lot of artists buy them as well," Mr Pearson said.

"The company has got years and years of experience. We just gave them text for the poster and let them do the design. We are really pleased with them."