A few of Nathan Spelt’s New Haven flyers
The poles of New Haven hold history. Fresh flyers grip onto thick layers of the past. Metal beams wear wheatpasted posters, still sticking half a decade later. Orange Street, Grand Avenue, and State Street are decorated with totems to the events that bind our city.
Esther Chiang of Mahjong Haven comparing flyers
But New Haven flyers go beyond tag sales or one-off events. This public art is created, curated, and maintained by neighbors: organizers, designers, printers, staplers, cleaners. Their wisdom and tradition is passed down from flyerer to flyerer, whether they know it or not.
“They’re like collages,” said Esther Chiang of Mahjong Haven, who advertises her community mahjong events throughout the city. “Sometimes [the poles are] so thick, you can't even get the staple gun through it.” Even though there are many artists who take part in these tapestries, there is still decorum that organizers are encouraged to follow. Pointing to an East Rock Brewery poster over an Erector Square Open Studios event, Chiang points out, “this feels kind of wrong because this hasn't happened yet.” But looking at her own poster, stapled on top of a past New Haven Flea event, she feels “weird” covering a flyer that someone else put work into designing and distributing.
Some people don’t put up any event-specific coverage at all. Nathan Spelt has put up parody flyers across New Haven, including the famous, “THERE IS A HOLE IN MY YARD FILLED WITH SOUP” and “GOD MEAT.” One poster advertises “NATHAN’S DRY WALL SERVICE,” which offers to dry wet walls. However, his “HOT DOG ANYWHERE” posters have actually fulfilled orders around New Haven, from customers at bookshops to gas stations.
Spelt “started [flyering] because I love New Haven and love its poles and saw lots of other good posters around town.” But sometimes the act of flyering is the joy itself. “New Haven has lots of little details that you can notice on a walk. Like the sound bath guy or Doug B Candles. I haven’t bought a candle from him but I feel like I know him.”
The stickers advertising “Doug B Candles” are all over New Haven, but the candlemaker doesn’t know who’s putting them up. “They won't tell me who they are, and they're putting them up all over the place. But I’m not going to complain about it. They're helping me out.”
Doug of Doug B Candles lifting up one of his products
The founder has been selling candles out of Branford since October 23, 2023, when his body became “completely shot” after truck driving for 35 years. He couldn’t pick up a pallet and load it onto a truck anymore, but, gesturing to his tin-can candle, “I could pick up this.” His business does well, “I’ll throw in eight in my backpack, I go down to the center of Branford, and they're gone in 15 minutes.”
He notices that the stickers make his business widely recognized. One day, parking his Doug B Candles decorated bike on Chapel Street, “A kid walked by and he stopped in his tracks and he backed up, looked at the sign, and said, ‘You’re Doug B Candles. You’re famous.” But Doug B Candles sees this as part of his mission to encourage people to try to make things. “I had a mentor, and he said, man, just fill that head up with knowledge as much as you can. There's an old saying: not all knowledge comes from college. I go to Blackstone Library, I'm a regular there, and I read everything I can get my hands on.” He wants other people to work with their hands, learn how to make goods and services, and get out into the community.
Doug B Candles said his sticker design took him “all about 15 minutes.” That simplicity is celebrated in the flyering community. Hayden Gaillard urges anyone to “please make fliers, even if you don't think you have any graphic design skills or artistic merit. It’s easy, it’s fun.” The New Haven artist is a popular flyer designer in the city, creating posters for political action events, parties like BLUSH, and markets like New Haven Flea. They say that flyers are their “favorite medium.” They describe flyering as “conversations that are happening on the ground of a city,” that range from the mundane to urgent.
Posters by Hayden Gaillard
But designing effective flyers is still an art. They urge flyer-makers to get the most important information across as quickly as possible, rather than including every detail that you have. “Take a step back and think, okay, if I wanted to go to this event, I would just need to know the date, the time, the energy and the price, versus every single vendor that's going to be at your fair or every DJ's music style at the event.”
Flyering defines New Haven’s scrappiness. It is the backbone of community events, going beyond whatever algorithms feed us. It invites everyone – both to join the events, and to go make flyers themselves.
