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Short run, an illustrated talk

admin — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:26:29 +0000

‘Short run’: experimental book design & London’s little presses was a talk I gave to launch an exhibition of the same name at St Bride Library, London.

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.

With these presses, production was an integral aspect of design, and design decisions were directly linked to available production processes and materials. Pursuing low-cost options, little press publishers were inventive in their methods of adding value to books by using coloured papers, alternative forms of lettering and experimental printing techniques.

Critical Context Program

admin — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:50:58 +0000

For one academic year (from 2007 to 2008), I ran the Professional Practice lecture series on the MA Communication Design program at Central Saint Martins, London. In practice, this meant inviting speakers of interest to come and talk to the students for an hour on a Tuesday night, on subjects ranging from independent publishing to play. Some nights we hosted a series of small-scale informal film screenings. Part of the delight of running this series meant I got to design a poster to advertise each of the events to the student community. The posters were meant for internal use only, and my constraint was that I had to spend no more than 60 minutes on each.

Often, due to shortage of time & budget, I had to be creative with low-res options available via online image searches or find images in my personal photo library that would suit. These are some favourites.