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Here’s a teaching experiment: Put a group of well-behaved, thoughtful students in a room, and ask them to take a decision. No decisions will be immediately taken. An enjoyable conversation will be had but the focus will be on the space between each other; on engagement rather than on decision-making. Frustrating for some, lifeblood for others.

Print Matters began as a meeting space for second and third year BA students who were familiar with print, and had a special interest in printed matters and the act of publication. We were interested, as Herbert Spencer suggested, in the purpose of printed matters (whether words or pictures) to spark off ideas and activities.

At the outset, before we met, I hoped that some of the concepts we would explore included narrative, documentation, publicity, failure and mistakes, and spontaneous and peripatetic publications… We would experiment and engage with content, craft and sustainable production. I had no real structure or plan as to how we would go about this. Rather, I hoped this would evolve naturally from the group. For me, as this was not a formal academic curricular activity, it was important that it form its own shape and boundaries based on the people in the group.

We had our first meeting in the Letterpress Workshop. At that time, it seemed crucial to be where a part of ‘making’ was situated on our course. The interest group had no identity as yet – having a place of ‘making’ as a meeting point would give us a small sense of structure and belonging. As we gained confidence, Print Matters appropriated different spaces around the college depending on the nature of our activity – computer room, common room, design studio, library, café…

Attendance sheet from the first meeting

Early on, as a group, we made a few decisions. Print Matters was not about a print fetish or making beautiful things. We thought this seemed crass and unseemly given the recession, sustainability issues, and reasoned criticisms levelled at contemporary publications. We discussed the nature of print in relation to ongoing technological developments – the mass digitizing of books by Google, the birth of the tablet (in particular the iPad), and the rise of risograph printing in London. All of this would provide fodder for our discussions and impetus for future publications.

Our work, we decided, needed to be linked to the course – we spoke of providing some ‘physical evidence’ of our community, BA Graphic Design. This was important, as the size of the group was small (16 students in all) when compared to the number of students on the course. It was essential that our making and our activity extend beyond our own selves to engage and involve our community.

Email communication with Estates about the placement of posters

At the end of that first meeting, we came away with two aims. One practical, and the other exploratory: to provide publicity for the weekly Wednesday lectures, and to give us the chance of a journey, to find our own path (or put another way: to look for questions first, before we provided answers). We put our names to a manifesto.

Poster for a talk by Ken Hollings. Designed by Ed Cornish using Stickies.

In an age of instant gratification, this manifesto is deeply old fashioned. As a result, this has been an arduous journey, and the manifesto has caused us all sorts of trouble on the way.

We had casualties on the way. Some students dropped out because they had other priorities, others were unable to commit to the Interest Group and manage course work, and for some who had committed to a peripatetic path there was realization that they required more structure.

This has brought up several questions – What is the purpose of a special interest group on a BA course? Is it possible to have students learn and engage with facilitation rather than directive teaching? Is consideration a luxurious activity? Is print primarily evidence of doing? Do designers need to be respectful, thoughtful human beings? Is collaboration an important aspect of design?

Some of these answers are found between the lines in these pages.

Publicity for a talk by David Preston. Designed by Nia Murphy using a rubber stamp.

Today, as we put together this publication, we appear to have slowly but naturally found our path. With three publications in the offing, including a collaboration with AND Publishing on a publication related to Google Books, we have been strangely busy. Looking back at the Posters for Talks, I realize that we have been quietly but effectively producing in the background. Perhaps you’ve noticed us…

Publicity for a talk by Paul Rennie. Designed by Boya Latumahina and Magdalena Sobczynska as a postcard printed by letterpress.

Publicity for a talk by Larry Sider. Designed by Rose Brissenden as a tin can sound system.

Stefan and Franciscka Themerson were a Polish émigré couple who came to London after World War II. Their fruitful creative partnership spanned numerous media including experimental photography, photomontage, film-making, poetry, fiction, painting and design. This partnership culminated in a prolific publishing venture, the Gabberbochus Press, which they started in London in 1949.

Stefan Themerson (1910–1988) was born in Płock, Poland. While still at school he was writing poetry and had stories published. He went on to study physics as well as architecture. Drawn to the avant-garde, he became absorbed in experimental photography, photomontage, and film-making. When typographer and designer Anthony Froshaug first met Stefan Themerson, he remarked that he was impressed by the ‘universality of interests of this person’, which included in-depth studies in poetry, science, music, invention, politics and painting.

Franciszka Weinles (1907–1988) was born in Warsaw. The daughter of a well-known painter, Jakub Weinles and a pianist, Łucja Kaufman, she took to the arts as a young child, and studied music at the Warsaw Academy of Music, and then painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. While there, she met Stefan Themerson in 1929. It was the start of a partnership that would span 59 years. The couple married in 1931.

The Themersons’ first collaboration was Apteka [Pharmacy] (1930), an experimental film. Between 1930 and 1937 they produced four more films and played a seminal role in the development of avant-garde cinema in pre–war Poland. They also collaborated on a number of children’s books, written by Stefan and illustrated by Franciszka.

Cover of f.a., for the Polish film-makers’ co-operative SAF

The Themersons’ first independent foray into publishing was the journal f.a. [Art Film] for the film-makers’ co-operative SAF (Spółdzielnia Autorów Filmowych) which they founded in 1935, establishing contacts with London and Paris. The journal was edited by Stefan and designed by Franciszka.

In 1938 the Themersons left Warsaw for Paris in search of a wider artistic environment. Franciszka was illustrating children’s books, while Stefan edited a children’s newspaper supplement and wrote poems. When World War II broke out, the Themersons volunteered for war service. Stefan joined the army and Franciszka became a cartographer for the Polish Government-in-Exile. After two years of separation, they were reunited in London in 1942, and made two more films. Six years later, they founded the Gaberbocchus Press.

In 1954, they became British citizens. Stefan rejected any notion of ‘exile’ and spoke of his cultural heritage as the world at large. This lack of nostalgia, coupled with a sense of detachment and the Themersons’ policy of publishing writers on the basis of their work rather than their heritage typify what differentiated Gaberbocchus from other small émigré publishers of the time.

Writers are never, writers are nowhere in exile, for they carry within themselves their own kingdom, or republic, or city of refuge, or whatever it is that they carry within themselves. And at the same time, every writer, ever, everywhere is in exile, because he is squeezed out from the kingdom, or republic, or city, or whatever it is that squeezes itself dry. – Stefan Themerson, 1946

Stefan counted among his friends the writers, artists, scientists and philosophers they had come to know in Warsaw, Paris and London. Of these, Kurt Schwitters and Bertrand Russell had a significant influence on his work and philosophy. Stefan’s first book published in English, Bayamus and the Theatre of Semantic Poetry: a novel (1949) lays out the meanings and strategies of his semantic poetry. He wrote eight novels, philosophical and critical essays, poems, a short play, more stories for children and an opera. As a painter, Franciszka had important solo exhibitions throughout England and Europe, and participated in many group exhibitions. She evolved a style of figurative painting, full of drawing, that she called ‘bi-abstract’ and that one critic described as ‘modern cave painting’. Her prolific, fluent drawing ranges from the lyrical to the grotesque. A brilliant illustrator, she also designed for the theatre.

The Gaberbocchus Press
The Themersons founded the Gaberbocchus Press in 1948, registering it as a limited company and issuing 1,000 shares worth £1 each. The name ‘Gaberbocchus’ was borrowed from a Latinisation of Lewis Carroll’s poem ‘Jabberwocky’ (devised by Carroll’s clergyman-uncle). The Gaberbocchus logo is a drawing of a literate, amicable dragon often found reclining and enjoying a book. Franciszka re-invented the dragon many times over the years.

Franciszka Themerson reinvented Gaberocchus’ literate amicable dragon many times over the years

Publishing took the place of film-making in the Themersons’ minds and creative lives. The press enabled them to stay independent; to remain in touch with Europe, introducing the work of important European writers and artists to a British audience; and finally, to publish their own experimental work in whatever form they chose. When asked by a journalist as to how many copies of books they expected to sell, Themerson said: ‘I want this book to exist as a document so that someone can have access to it… some day.’

In the 31 years of its existence, Gaberbocchus Press published 60 titles. Among them were first English editions of such European writers as Christian-Dietrich Grabbe, Raoul Hausmann, Alfred Jarry, Pol-Dives, Raymond Queneau, Kurt Schwitters, and Anatol Stern. Gaberbocchus authors also included Bertrand Russell, Hugo Manning, Oswell Blakeston and Stevie Smith.

The editing, design, and paste-up were done in-house by the Themersons. Two other people were intimately involved with the press: Barbara Wright, translating texts from the French, and the painter, Gwen Barnard. For reasons of time, energy and finance by 1979 the Press was no longer truly viable, and Gaberbocchus was taken over by the Dutch publisher, Jaco Groot, whose company, De Harmonie, maintains a caretaking role.

The press also functioned as an important meeting place for those interested in art and science. The Themersons ran the Gaberbocchus Common Room from 1957 to 1959 in the basement of their office in Formosa Street. The members, 149 members in all, met informally on a weekly basis, paying a subscription of 10 shillings. 82 events – lectures, discussions, plays, poetry readings and music recitals – were organised during the two years that the Common Room was active.

Invitation to an event at the Common Room

A Gaberbocchus book
‘Book design,’ Hugh Williamson wrote, ‘tends to be at its best when carried out by a single designer, who can prepare a coherent plan for every stage of the book’s production.’ The unique look and feel of Gaberbocchus books was largely due to the Themersons’ involvement in the design and production. Gaberbocchus titles show thought, deliberation and planning.

Stefan Themerson described their approach: ‘When we design a book what we aim at is a best-looker not a best-seller. You may think it odd, but that is sound economic policy for a publisher of our size.’ The form of each book – achieved by their choice of typography, style of imagery, and format – was the result of their sympathetic and original interpretation of the book’s meaning.

The Themersons’ approach to the book as a material object to be touched and handled as well as read is evident in their very first publications, Jankel Adler: an artist seen from one of many possible angles (1948) and The Eagle & the Fox & the Fox & the Eagle (1949). They were printed on mould-made deckle-edged paper using a hand press, and bound with special cloth. As Nick Wadley noted, ‘manual assembly, not only of things but of the means to assemble things, was a natural activity to both of them’.

Page from Stefan Themerson’s Kurt Schwitters in England: 1940-1948 (1958)

While the Themersons also made use of commercial production processes – subcontracting the typesetting, printing and binding – their approach to book design combined something of the trade book designer with something of the artist. Their artistic approach is evident in their preferences for associative aspects of typography, integrated complex layouts that treat the page as a canvas, and the strong use of colour in their books. For the Themersons, the book was another medium for their creative expression.

Alfred Jarry, Ubu Roi (1951). First English translation and preface by Barbara Wright, with drawings by Franciszka Themerson

Franciszka was Gaberbocchus’ primary illustrator. While most 0f the illustrations were drawings, other styles used in Gaberbocchus books include photographs, photomontages, monoprints, collages, diagrams, photograms, engravings, reproductions of a variety of material including illustrations on magic lantern slides, collages created using Victorian steel engravings, and gravure illustrations.

The Themersons had a deep interest in typography and typographic layout. In his writings on the placement of printed words on the page, Stefan Themerson noted:
A page of a book is like a human face. Look at a page by Hemingway and compare it with Sterne and Marcel Proust. They are different typographical beings. But force upon them those ragged edges, and the influence of the author’s style on the physical aspect of the page, their typographical physiognomy will disappear. No, unjustified setting is a sort of gleichschaltung [enforced conformity] through diversity, a very phoney diversity. Produced methodically by chance. For the comfort of the keyboard, and not for the comfort of the eye.

Aesop’s The Eagle and the Fox, the Fox and the Eagle (1949) shows the Themersons’ deep interest in typography and typographic layout

For him, an unjustified or ragged-edged setting was more appropriate in the setting of poetry. Themerson’s meaning of unjustified is that words in the line have fixed spacing and are not adjusted. Internal vertical justification, or IVJ, was the organization of words on a page in a more planar, less linear way. IVJ started with Themerson’s invention of semantic poetry, and was actually borne from his attempt as a writer and poet to strip language down to its ‘true reality’.

The Good Citizen’s Alphabet (1953), one of the Gaberbocchus books featured that year in the National Book League British Book Production exhibition.

Franciszka’s caricatures for Russell’s The Good Citizen’s Alphabet (1953) are a good example of the use of imagery in Gaberbocchus books. The visual, though related to the text, does not directly illustrate it but rather adds another dimension to the book. The Good Citizen’s Alphabet (1953) was one of the Gaberbocchus books that were featured in the National Book League British Book Production exhibition in 1953. The book employs a sophisticated multi-coloured palette with as many as ten different colours.

Although the design of Gaberbocchus books reveals an understanding of both structural and associative possibilities of typography, the Themersons were more clearly interested in the latter. Their skill is most evident in display composition (particularly book jackets and title pages), and in illustrated titles.

Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style (1958)

When compared to the ‘grey’ design and printing of numerous mainstream titles of the 1960s and 1970s, the Gaberbocchus output is both inventive and refreshing. Their work is best summed up in a review written by the designer Ruari McLean:
Originality of text can be greatly enhanced by originality of decoration, illustration, even of materials. Most English book designers are so paralysed by the obligations of good taste and the fear of looking like Americans (or, alternatively, of not looking like Americans) that they hardly ever take a risk. Gaberbocchus Press … however, is always taking outrageous risks; whatever the financial results, the aesthetic results are wildly stimulating and satisfactory.

Images produced by the kind permission of the Themerson Archive. This article first appeared in the St Bride Library journal, Ultrabold, Summer 2009.

Slides from Short run, an illustrated talk

The talk focused on important aspects of little press publishing such as the publisher’s direct involvement in the design and production of their books. The design approach of a little press was largely dependent on the publisher’s available resources and connections that contributed to the unique identity of the imprints.

I ran this as an introduction brief for my third year students on the BA @ CSM. It was a short one-week brief and a simple, effective way to get students comfortable with bringing their own perspectives to their practice.

Here are three very different results:

Ben Lee

Louise Naunton Morgan

Guglielmo Rossi

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Most marriages in South India are arranged and while ‘love’ marriages do happen, it is not the encouraged norm.  It is an accepted fact for the most part that a boy or girl’s parents will play an important role in the picking of their marriage partner. A marriage in South India is not just the sealing of a bond between two people but a merging of two families. The merger is based on the compatibility of the couple to some extent but important criteria include religion, caste, class, social status and wealth.

Marriage in India is viewed as the culmination of one’s life and great preparations go into making this a grand and memorable social event. It is also a matter of social standing – the grander the wedding, the greater the stature. It is no surprise then that every aspect of an Indian marriage is carefully thought out and planned for months, sometimes years in advance by the families involved. This includes the design of the wedding invitation.

The tradition of wedding invitations
In pre-modern India there was no need for wedding invitations. Marriages often took place within families with cousins marrying each other or within small villages and towns where everyone knew each other. There was no need to inform anyone because everyone already knew of the event.  The parents of the bride and groom would simply visit their extended family and friends and family in their homes as a courtesy to tell them the happy news. This served as the invitation.

With economic progress, people began to move away from their ancestral homes into larger cities and things changed. The family unit was no longer contained within the village but was spread out across the country making oral invitations no longer feasible. This coupled with the spread of printing in India in the early 20^th century gave rise to these oral announcements being realised in print.

The traditional South Indian wedding invitation is not a card but a printed leaflet that borrows its form from the earlier tradition of oral announcement and from the form of a hand written letter.

The template of a traditional South Indian invitation

The invitation follows a traditional template and is always enclosed within a large decorative border. It always begins with an incantation to the family’s ancestral god at the top of the invite and is followed by clip art images of five different Hindu gods. The main content of the invitation is worded like a letter and informs the recipient of a marriage between two families.

This is followed by the bride’s and groom’s educational and professional qualifications as well as their family lineage and town. All these details are considered important as it establishes family status and lineage. It also links the past (who the bride and groom are, and where they are from) with the future of the couple. The information about the groom always appears on the left, centred and enclosed within a box while the bride’s details appear similarly in a box on the right. Following this sense of alignment, based on who the invite is from (usually the bride’s or groom’s father), the name of the addressee is placed either to the right or the left.

In general, great prominence is given to the family and often the names of various family members (uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters and cousins) are mentioned beneath the main text as well-wishers of the occasion. While this is portrayed as a visible indication of the family’s support and blessing of the union, it also works like a family tree, outlining lineage for the recipient of the invitation. The details of the actual event such as time, place and date are delegated to the base of the invite and are often in smaller type size. This hierarchy of information is telling because it clearly gives the family prominence over the details of the wedding event.

Traditional invitations are always printed on double-sided glossy art paper, yellow on one side, and pink on the reverse. The main text and images are always printed in dark green and red on the yellow side. Yellow and red in particular are considered to be auspicious colours in the Hindu tradition.  Traditionally, the announcements are in the vernacular (in Tamil) and carry very little English text.  However, nowadays it is increasingly common practice to have the English version of the invitation printed on the reverse (pink) side of the paper.

Traditionally, these announcements were letter-pressed though they are now also printed by mini-offset or screen-printed. The letterpress process could be partly the reason why the invites often have many different combinations of type. Letterpress jobbing printers very rarely had one complete set of text typefaces, and if they did it was usually Helvetica or Arial. Therefore, to set an invitation with different levels of hierarchy, they often resorted to using display type. A wedding stationery printer in Chennai gave me another reason for this multi-various type palette. Vernacular typefaces, he said (and I paraphrase here) are by the nature of their shape, decorative and script-like. In comparison, Latin typefaces appear ‘austere’ to the Indian eye and therefore require ‘creative mixing’ to match the ornamental feel of vernacular typefaces. Sometimes this creative mixing is done with such enthusiasm that it can involve as many as seven different typefaces in a single invitation.

A Tamil wedding invite which uses seven different typefaces

Contemporary Wedding Invitations
While traditional invitations are still common practice in Tamil Nadu, Hindu families in larger towns and cities go for a more contemporary format. The modern Indian wedding invitation is a riot of colour, typography and image. The invitation, seen as the first intimation of the wedding ceremony carries the responsibility of reflecting the family’s status in society as well as the grandness of the occasion. Invitations (based on the grandness of the wedding and the resources of the bride’s father) take three main forms. The simple card (very rarely used), the folded card (most popular) and ‘the book invitation’.  I also looked at envelopes. I was curious to find out a few things.

Which typefaces were most popular?

Did religion made a difference in typographic choice and final form? For example, were the Christians more for scripted faces than the Hindus? Did the Muslims prefer sans serif to serifs? Were the Hindus more ostentatious than the Parsis?

And finally, did the rich have less taste than the poor?

I proceeded to do a little research on this using my collection as a sample. 

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Which typefaces were most popular?
The typefaces that find most favour for Indian wedding invites are a mixture of serifs, san serifs and script typefaces. They are, in alphabetical order:  Amazone,  Arial (Regular and Italic),  Century School Book,  Dauphin, Edwardian Script ITC,  Georgia (Regular and Italic),  Helvetica (Regular and Italic), Kaufmann,  Murray Hill, Nuptial BT, Park Avenue, Poetica Chancery, Pristina, Shelley Allegro, Verdana, Vivaldi, and Zapf Chancery.

Did religion made a difference in typographic choice and final form?
Across all religions and class, envelopes seem to work as brief announcements of the event.

The envelope carrying the wedding invitation holds key information

The recipient at single glance is informed of the event (wedding, reception etc.). This is almost usually in Zapf Chancery. They are also informed of who is marrying whom, of the date of the wedding and whom the invitation is from. Hindu cards often carry the address of the invitee as well so the recipient can send a telegram wishing the couple, which is still common practice in many parts of India. In the case of Hindu invitations, the envelope most often carries a clipart image of the Hindu God Ganesha, who is seen to be the remover of all obstacles.

The envelope for a Tamil wedding

Simple wedding cards
Simple wedding cards were rare to find. In a selection of over 300 samples, there were only four simple card invitations.  One was a Christian invite, one a Parsi invite and the other two were Hindu invitations. In general, with both simple and folded cards, Christians and Parsis tend to be more minimalist in their type selection. They rarely go for more than one typeface and the type is almost always in gold on a cream background. If two typefaces are used, one is a script face such as Shelley Allegro. This is used to highlight the names of the parents and the bride and groom. The second typeface is a serif such as Garamond or Georgia for the main body text. There is an European influence evident in these invites.

An invitation to a Christian wedding

A Parsi wedding invitation

It is difficult to draw similar parallels with Hindu invites other than the prominence given to the names of the parents and the bride and groom, and the preferred colour for type being red or maroon. This colour preference probably derives from the fact that red or maroon are the colours of the ‘sindhoor’ or the mark that is placed on a bride’s forehead indicating that she is married. Hindu invites also seem to go for serifs or san serifs based on personal preference more than anything else.

A Hindu wedding invite using the classic palette and printed on handmade paper

The most popular format for Hindu wedding invitations is the folded card. In Chennai, capital city of Tamil Nadu, there are numerous speciality-wedding invitations shops that have pre-designed folded cards for parents to choose from. Only on rare occasions (and with more affluent families) are the invitations custom-made. Numerous samples of invites (with their corresponding envelopes) are pasted within large photo albums and displayed on counters or exhibited individually on the walls. There are helpful assistants to guide parents in their selection. The samples are helpfully categorised by religion: Sikh cards, Muslim cards, Christian cards, Hindu cards, and Interfaith cards.

They are also categorised by levels of grandeur (plain wedding cards, designer wedding cards, scroll invites, and cards with jewels). None of the invitations contain any typography and the first choice of design is based on paper, image and colour. The front of a folded card also never carries any text (though I did find a marvellous exception to the rule).

A Hindu wedding envelope

Grand designs using plenty of gold or silver are usually popular. With Hindu invitations a clipart image of Lord Ganesha is common. Only after the choice of the card is made does type come into the picture and even then it is of secondary importance. Parents are more concerned with the content than the typography and the choice is often one recommended by the salesman behind the counter. With Hindu invitations in South India, three typefaces win hands down – Zapf Chancery and Arial Italic or Helvetica Italic.  Zapf Chancery is used for the main body of the invite. Arial Italic or Helvetica Italic is used for more factual information such as lineage, address, profession, educational qualifications. The type again usually appears in maroon or red.

On the insides of the cards, the text is always centred, never in capitals and never in black, which is considered an inauspicious colour; this applies to all cards whether grand or simple, from any religion. As with single card invites, the invitee’s names and the names of the couple as with the single card invites are given most prominence in the card. The main difference between the single card invites and the folded invites is that the folded invites often carry the programme of the wedding on the left side of the card. Keeping in mind that weddings are events which affirm one’s social standing in the community, as many details about the wedding are mentioned even down to the orchestra that has been hired to play at the event.

After the choice of type has being made, the cards then go through a swift proofing session (usually on the very next day) and are screen printed with the approved text. The turnaround time for these invites is usually 48 hours. So if you’re having a shotgun wedding in India, you’d still probably be able to get the invites out in time!

Do the rich have less taste than the poor?
With affluent families, ceremonies for Indian weddings can often stretch over 4-5 days and invitations can often be confused with books as each ceremony demands its own invite.

One example of a ‘book invitation’

The invitations are grouped, sized to work as a set and encased in a grand folder. This style of invitation probably provides great relief to parents as all family members can be appeased by the placement of their names on at least one of the many invitation cards. The design and typography of these invitations seems to have no limits as each invite tries to outdo the last.

It is in these custom-made invites that the Indian love of technology comes through. Invites are die-cut, handmade, gold foiled to make them appear as grand as possible.

Sometimes even semi-precious stones and miniature Hindu gods are stuck onto the invites.

The biggest difference between South Indian wedding invitations and Western wedding cards is the focus. While western invites go for the more minimalist, simple and elegant look, Indian invites focus on imbuing the card with the splendour and grandeur of the occasion. We all know what ‘happily ever after’ means in the Western context. But what does ‘happily ever after’ mean in the context of a South Indian arranged marriage? I suspect it is Zapf Chancery in bright, shiny gold!