CRAFT THURS 9:30-12:30PM, THURS 1:30-4:30PM *See myTimetable for Room & Time
Studio Inquiry
Books are one of the great and enduring means of communicating culture, and in the technological and communication revolution of the last couple of decades, what a book can be has changed, and the form of the book has flourished. Books are weirder and more interesting right now than they've ever been. In Making Pages, we will investigate contemporary small press publishing from theoretical and practical perspectives, and we will learn about books by designing and producing books. We will also have a stall at the NGV Art Book Fair, during which we will run a project and get to know a community of publishers and book makers.
Engagement
In this studio you will learn a variety of ways of thinking about and approaching the making of books. You will learn about books and publishing from historical, technical, pragmatic and speculative points of view. You will also learn about book typography, the construction of grids and books as systems.
Communication of knowledge
Books always create links; between a reader, an author, an editor, other books, to name just a few. In this studio you will need to design for these audiences, and early in the semester you will meet and communicate with your community of practice through the NGV Art Book Fair.
Activities
Over the course of the semester you will design and produce (at least) three books. In some instances you will also be authoring content or collecting and curating content. You will need to be willing to work in unconventional ways and develop historically and theoretically informed ways of working. This studio will run predominantly online, where we will discuss, design and critique books. Depending on the public health circumstances and guidelines, we will also try to run some activities in a studio setting and, if possible, we will visit Stuart's production workshop to do some offset printing. We will be using outsourced production processes like print-on-demand. There will be guest lectures, field trips and weekly readings to discuss.
Assessments
There will be three assessment tasks in this studio, each one will involve you making a different kind of book.
AT1: Book as investigation/documentary
AT2: Book as speculation
AT3: Book as critical archive (SKO)
Pre-Reading
Books Make Friends, Letter from Christoph Keller to Roger Willems: http://www.dextersinister.org/MEDIA/PDF/KellerLetter.pdf
Self-publishing: Graphic Designers as Editors, Florine Bonaventure (intro):
http://ma-ad.ch/thesis/self-publishing-graphic-designers-as-editors/
Studio Partner
NGV Art Book Fair
Communities of Practice
Design and the Post-Digital, Designing through Image, Designing Publications