Graphic Arts Merit Badge with Joseph Mayernik and Tony Zanni

November 15th (Saturday)

Type High Letterpress

215 Tremont St. Door 8, Suite 121, Rochester, NY 14608

One Session - 10 Participants

9:00 am - 2:00 pm (Lunch is included)

Download the Graphic Arts merit badge pamphlet and read it beforehand

Wear your Scout Uniform

Program supplies will be provided

Please bring a copy of your favorite quote

Scoutbook reminder

Unit Leadership should add the Scout's name to the Merit Badge in Scoutbook

About the Counselor: Joseph Mayernik & Tony Zanni

Taking vintage comic books and reinterpreting them into large-scale works of art.

Yes, he cuts up vintage comic books into tiny pieces. Sacrilege? Travesty? Horrible? Quite possibly, but each work of art allows the comics to reach their fullest potential.  Joseph’s art sets heroes free and exaggerates them. With their large size, the viewer is forced to be overwhelmed by the story. Every Hero Collage takes what is meant to be viewed as linear and explodes it on a flat surface to be enjoyed all at once. Each consists of only certain comics within the book title, and to complete the art, Joseph places a portion of the mastheads on the back of the canvases. There is an intentional choice to exploit certain storylines. No other random comic titles are included as filler. Each comic book resigns itself to sacrifice through selection.  Each is a puzzle without directions.

Joseph is a proud graduate of the Center for Creative Studies located in Detroit, Michigan. His Hero Collage artwork has been in exhibitions from Florida to Michigan and New York, to California to Tokyo. He also has many works of art in private collections across the United States. At 6’4”, it’s little wonder Joseph likes thinking big. He’s an art director, illustrator, fine artist, thespian, author, business owner, radio DJ, father & husband. Joseph is also known as an internationally recognized fine artist and creative director.

By day, Joseph is the owner and creative director of Brandtatorship. A boutique advertising agency located in the historic High Falls district of beautiful downtown Rochester, New York, specializing in forging ideas that help companies take charge of their brand.  Joseph is responsible for shaping brands as diverse as Textron, General Motors, and Scouting America. With a stylus pen, sharp blade, or pencil in hand, Joseph’s expertise shines across a diverse field of disciplines, including fine art, art direction, digital, broadcast production, illustration, and social media. Know this about Joseph. If he likes you, he’ll draw a caricature of you. If he really likes you, he’ll make it resemble you and not the cartoon blue jay Mordecai.

Tony Zanni is an award winning graphic designer and owner of Type High Letterpress. He learned the black art of letterpress in the basement of an old barn in Webster, New York in the early 2000s. He got his graphic design degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology shortly after. 

In 2009 he turned that passion into a fully operational letterpress printing business with the help of two old Type Comps. Those two type comps showed him how to properly set type, do proper make readies and run several of the presses in the shop. In 2013 Tony purchased the letterpress shop from his mentor and started Type High Letterpress. The shop houses one of the largest collections of wood and metal type in western New York. It is home to several antique printing presses that are all still in use today. In the shop he hand sets wood and metal type to create posters, invitations, stationery, a line of greeting cards, notebooks and more.