New Times Merch Drop: Our Collab With Brian Butler Upper Hand Art

A cruise ship in chancletas, coconut in hand, morning cafecito steaming from its smokestack, reading a copy of Miami New Times beside a palm tree and a rooster. It might sound like a fever dream, but that uniquely absurdist image is exactly what Miami-based artist Brian Butler was going for when New Times tapped him to design merch for its spring fundraising campaign.

“Miami is so deeply ingrained in all the artwork that I make,” Butler says. “The fun equation for me is imagining which ingredients I can pull that are so heavily ingrained in Miami’s iconography, and how I can smash those things together and make them feel fresh and new.”

The design also features the Bermuda Triangle as a backdrop and the tagline, “Reporting direct from the Bermuda Triangle since 1987,” a nod to the paper’s founding year. His relationship with New Times doesn’t stretch back quite that far, but he’s been in the mix for over a decade. Among his first contributions was coverage of a Neutral Milk Hotel show at the Olympia Theater, where photography wasn’t permitted. Butler showed up with a sketchpad. “There was no drawing policy,” he remembers, “so I drew it.”

Butler moved to Miami from Boston in 2010 and rapidly embedded himself in the local scene. Designing flyers and posters for Sweat Records got his work into circles that could appreciate his particular aesthetic. His portfolio now spans murals and merch for the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers, public art installations, and a long list of commissions that have kept his art visible across the city and beyond.

Miami’s wonderful weirdness has skewed his sense of what is “normal.” “Ships don’t have legs, but if they did, maybe they should be wearing chancletas. That’s not weird here.”

Of course, New Times covers that weirdness every day, and Butler, too, is a reader.

“I appreciate Miami New Times for keeping print alive and focusing local,” he says. “It’s something residents and visitors can dependably stumble upon in real life and learn more about their tropical surroundings.”

• Members who contribute $35+ monthly or $300+ yearly get a limited-release commemorative t-shirt, tote bag, and sticker.
• Contribute $10+ monthly or $100+ yearly, and you’ll get a limited-release commemorative sticker and your choice of a t-shirt or tote.
• All one-time contributions get a limited-release commemorative New Times sticker.