Meet Bailey Race | Illustrator, Designer, and Creative Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Bailey Race and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Bailey, we’d love for you to start things off by telling us something about your industry that we and others not in the industry might be unaware of?
How much goes into one poster/piece, hands down. There’s been more times that I can count where folks are surprised that that poster artists are a thing, let alone that it can be a professional career – it’s one of those things that many don’t put a second thought into, you know? After that conversation is started and I explain all of what goes into every single piece, from conception to completion, people are even more surprised that almost 125-150 hours are poured into every single thing that I create, but it’s absolutely a labor of love.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
This is my favorite and hardest question for folks to ask me – because all I can say is that I just draw what I love, and that’s totally the secret to it. During 2020, I don’t think I drew a single thing from March to September, and I think that was totally a hard reset button for me in terms of what I created. Before 2020, I was widely known for very calming, nostalgic, and warm illustrations – mainly featuring very tame botanical illustrations or brightly lit neon city scenes… which was all well and good, but I was VERY burnt out and tired of the repetition. Fast forward to the end of the aforementioned dry spell and the start of therapy, and all of a sudden the creative floodgates opened – I started illustrating WEIRD surrealist subjects, and I was MADLY in love with my work. After this, I’ve just been pushing hard to continue getting more weird and surreal, while also keeping a good hold on the light, color, and tone that I started to become known for – it’s been a blast. I just want to keep drawing weird shit that I love, all the way until the day I die.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well, I JUST moved to Minneapolis, so I’m very much in the position of still learning the city – but I have one easy answer… my favorite arcade bar, updown. Ask any of my touring friends, the one question I ask them before they play MPLS is “do you have the night/day off, and if so… do you want to go to an arcade bar?” – it’s an absolute sure fire of a bet haha. Apart from that, I looooove the arts and music scenes here- and live super close to the MIA (Minneapolis institute of art), so that would for sure be on there. ALSO, there’s a crazy amount of great breweries and cool bars here, so those would be a must – Inbound and LynLake, in particular. Shoutout to all of the great beer here, dude.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Oh man, the list is absolutely endless. When I started doing this – My professors at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) printmaking department were 150% a necessary part to my start. They let me start my business and create some of my first client work in lieu of assignments, and even let me have 24/7 studio access to print the volume that I had to print, which was MASSIVE in getting this off the ground. Since then I’ve been so stupid lucky to be friends with so many talented artists in the poster world, Dan Black and Dave Kloc in particular have given me such a CRAZY amount of support and guidance, and I’m so thankful for all they’ve done – also look at their work, it’s insanely good. I also wouldn’t be able to do what I do without my incredible (small but mighty) team now, who help me run everything smoothly while I’m able to focus on the creative end of things – Jack (my manager) has been with me pretty much since I started doing this, and has helped me in ways I could never even thank him for.

Website: RaileyBacePrints.com

Instagram: @raileybaceprints

Facebook: “Friends of RaileyBacePrints” is our Facebook group!!!

Image Credits
Photo of me – Shelby Slomba