How can designers imbue care into their practice? How can small-press be used as a generative practice that 'fills the well' and avoids creative burnout? How can designers learn to care for themselves, their practice, their community and care for Country?

If the last few years of Covid-turmoil have taught us anything it's that 'care' for oneself, and for ones community is vital, nourishing and generative. Designers must be equipped with a deep emotional intelligence and practiced in 'design as care' in order to create meaning, make change, and have a fulfilled creative career.

This studio will invite you to consider care through the lens of small-press - together we will focus on making, cutting, folding, binding, glueing and most importantly - building our community of care! Together as a studio we will create a nourishing and care-filled community...and a lot of publications!

Together we will engage with the work of artists who include collecting as part of their practice - including Destiny Deacon and Patrick Pound. Through these artists you will explore how collecting and creatively documenting can be a particulary generative practice for designers - a way to care for the self.

We will also engage with design theory, in an accessible way, around care including the work of academic Tony Fry.

We will explore small-press (designer-made books and zines) through the theme of ‘care’. This studio will open emerging designers up to the ways design can care for themselves and others.

Together our studio community will create a plethora of publications including one of them designed to be a gift for a fellow designer. We hope to document all of these publications, and display them digitally.

This will be a hands on studio that will require you to be constantly crafting your publications and experimenting with methods. 

In this studio we will visit insitutions such as The Sticky Institute and The State Library to gather inspiration and engage with the small press scene.

In class we will conduct WIP sessions with critical feedback and explore material techniques together like binding, folding, collage, and paper-craft.

We will engage with contemporary design theory around care, including care for Country and imbuing care into design practice.

Brief 1: You will make a zine as a form of documentation and creative self-care.

Brief 2: You will make an artist book as a means to explore DIY small press and care for community.

Brief 3: Your SKO will be constructed around the idea in design - and will be a gift for another designer.

Design Futuring - Tony Fry