House of Posters: Five Years Later
Five years ago, House of Posters started as a small, personal project. It was just me in a cramped college dorm with a loud printer that barely worked half the time and a wall that felt way too empty. I didn’t have a roadmap, a business plan, any design knowledge, or even a clue what I was doing. I just knew that blank walls deserved better. They deserved art.
I remember sitting in an entry-level entrepreneurship class at UVU. I was talking about my idea, telling people I wanted to sell posters — my posters — at markets and test my idea. I’ll never forget the looks I got. My professors told me flat-out, “That’ll never work.” They said,
“You can’t make a living selling posters.”
I heard it so many times it almost became the soundtrack of my college years. I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. Chalk it up to me being stubborn, but something in me refused to let go of my vision.
So I started where I could. One market at a time. I’d load up my car every weekend, rain or shine, drive hours sometimes, and set up my booth like it was my little art gallery on the road. I’d talk to strangers all day, tell them the stories behind the designs, and slowly, one by one, people started to get it. They started to connect with my designs and those long nights spent learning how to design started to pay off.
What began as a “silly idea” grew into something real. Over the years, I’ve sold at 563 markets. I've been everywhere from small-town pop-ups to huge conventions, from parking lots to event halls. I’ve sold over 100,000 posters. Each one heading off to someone’s wall, someone’s dorm, someone’s space that they wanted to make feel like home.
Through all of that, I’ve changed too. I’ve grown as an artist and as a person. My designs have evolved, my style has matured, and so have I. What started as an experiment in minimalism became a language of storytelling driven by maximalist designs. Each poster became a reflection of where I was in life: my travels, my nostalgia, my humor, my heartbreak, my hope.
I’d be lying if I said this journey has been easy.
There’s this strange emptiness that can come with success. When you look at everything you’ve built, all the posters sold, all the people who’ve supported you in person, and yet… online, it can still feel invisible. You put your soul into your work, and sometimes the algorithm just shrugs. You start to wonder what else you have to give for people to see what you’ve done.
It’s a strange, bittersweet limbo. One side of the coin brims with gratitude for the wins; the other aches for recognition that still feels miles away. Some days it drains every drop of energy.
I spent years forging something from scratch, convinced that “making it” would finally silence the doubt. It doesn’t, it simply morphs into a new shape.
Yet when I look back, I'm so proud. I kept pushing when quitting would’ve been easier. I showed up when logic screamed to walk away. I took an idea everyone swore would flop and built it into a movement, a community, a brand that actually matters to people.
This isn’t just about selling posters, it’s about connection.
It’s about moments. It’s about giving people a way to express who they are, where they’ve been, or what they dream about, through something as simple as a poster on a wall.
And to everyone who has supported this journey whether you bought a poster, visited the booth, shared a kind word, or just believed in what I was trying to do. Thank you. You kept me going.
So here we are, five years later. I’m still creating. Still learning. Still chasing that spark that started it all. The road hasn’t been easy, but it’s been real. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the best things don’t happen overnight. Dreams built, one market, one design, one believer at a time.
