Jay Ryan was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1972. Ryan is a poster maker and rock musician. He learned to screenprint in 1995, working under Steve Walters at Screwball Press. Working in Skokie, Illinois, Ryan produces limited run, hand-printed posters for rock bands, concerts, and for events such as art shows. Most of Ryan’s work is screen printed at his print shop, The Bird Machine (started in 1999). He has produced posters for the bands Shellac and the Flaming Lips, as well as thousands of others. He is also responsible for the album art and track illustrations of Andrew Bird’s The Mysterious Production of Eggs and Weather Systems. He also provided the cover art for Michael Chabon’s 2004 novel The Final Solution and publicity art for Chicago’s 57th Street Art Fair. In 2005 he published a book called 100 Posters, 134 Squirrels: A Decade of Hot Dogs, Large Mammals, and Independent Rock: The Handcrafted Art of Jay Ryan.