Small Press Movement
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| 2012, Farmer's Market, Yeehaw Industries |
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| 2010, Oddball Press |
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| 2008, Yeehaw Industries |
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| Current, Lunalux Press |
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| Current, Zeichen Press |
Thursday, September 20, 2012
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Wednesday, September 19, 2012
*huff* Okay, so the first thing you should know is that I am almost totally unfamiliar with graphic design and typography. For that matter I also refused to take printmaking. I've always associated graphic design with brain-warping advertisements (with a few shining exceptions) and printmaking with taking three times as long to do something I could draw or print in less than an hour. As a fairly impatient artist, that sounded like ungodly torture to me. I may be exaggerating just a little bit.
So allow me to play the devil's advocate, for a bit. Mind you, I often agree with the basic concepts of these "back to simplicity" movements. Back to crafting, back to handmaking, back to putting your heart and soul into a piece. I'm one of the few people in the country who still regularly exchanges hand-written letters with a friend. I collect things that are unique and odd and aren't a part of a set. I prefer sketching on paper over my handy-dandy [graphics] tablet. The sounds of an acoustic guitar sends far more shivers down my spine than any electric guitar solo. I get it.
I may create unique and hand-made documents for my best friend, but I guarantee you that my graduation announcements will be produced and printed, designed to be a stack of identical objects. Because the message needs to be the same for each person I send them to, and to make them all unique would take far too much time and energy.
But I'm getting off topic. Consider my homework assignment as beginning here. Basically there were three movements - one during the industrial revolution, one at the turn of the century, and another that is happening right now. The Small Press Movement is almost exactly like the Arts and Crafts Movement that came 100 years before. The biggest difference AND similarity is what started them. The swift movement into the technological age has modern day artists striving to learn outdated methods of production in order to think differently about fonts and design - materials to be used in art. At the turn of the century it was the improvement of the machinery that scared them - the idea of items made en mass and without human hands involved - and it sent them all scurrying into shops full of wood dust and hand-tools. They found peace there. Now the mass-production machines they turned their backs on are just another piece of our history, something that those tiring of the digital age and inkjet printers can turn back to in the same manner as the Arts and Crafters turned to their own tools.
Personally I can't see much similarity at all between these two movements and the art fashioned and printed during the industrial revolution. Was there anyone fighting for ye olde art of hand-writing the books? It seemed like every artist was on board, with a bit of an arms race being formed for the invention of the printing press. The church was even on top of it, quickly embracing mass-printing and production. The identical and beautiful pages were cherished for their novelty and efficiency of design, space, and duplication.
What was, back then, the cutting edge method of creating identical prints, has now became the modern method of getting prints that are NOT all identical. With the onset of the digital age and the printer, suddenly the subtle differences in ink placement on a pressed document became interesting and imperfect and beautiful.
These are movements based on relativity. What happens when we invent a hyper cube holographic imprinter? Won't the inkjet printer - with it's actual physical paper and liquid ink - suddenly be incredibly outdated and charmingly tangible? The imperfections in the printings due to low ink or misalignment will be sought after and embraced rather than thrown away as they are today. Classes will be taught 2D Digital Print instead of Printmaking, and it will because of the artistic and historical value alone.
I think that's why I balk so much at learning outdated methods of production, besides the fact that they aren't used in the career I want. At the rate technology is being invented, it won't be long before the modern methods I know so well will be obsolete. I'll be the grandma who is still stubbornly buying ink and using her old fashioned digital inkjet printer. My grandkids will laugh at how blotchy the liquid ink is and how funny it looks when it runs out of ink.
Actually, scratch that. I'll have the bloody printer around if it still works but I'll be darned if I'm not going to use whatever new technology the media companies have funded for production. I'm nostalgic, not stubbornly old-fashioned.
So allow me to play the devil's advocate, for a bit. Mind you, I often agree with the basic concepts of these "back to simplicity" movements. Back to crafting, back to handmaking, back to putting your heart and soul into a piece. I'm one of the few people in the country who still regularly exchanges hand-written letters with a friend. I collect things that are unique and odd and aren't a part of a set. I prefer sketching on paper over my handy-dandy [graphics] tablet. The sounds of an acoustic guitar sends far more shivers down my spine than any electric guitar solo. I get it.
I may create unique and hand-made documents for my best friend, but I guarantee you that my graduation announcements will be produced and printed, designed to be a stack of identical objects. Because the message needs to be the same for each person I send them to, and to make them all unique would take far too much time and energy.
But I'm getting off topic. Consider my homework assignment as beginning here. Basically there were three movements - one during the industrial revolution, one at the turn of the century, and another that is happening right now. The Small Press Movement is almost exactly like the Arts and Crafts Movement that came 100 years before. The biggest difference AND similarity is what started them. The swift movement into the technological age has modern day artists striving to learn outdated methods of production in order to think differently about fonts and design - materials to be used in art. At the turn of the century it was the improvement of the machinery that scared them - the idea of items made en mass and without human hands involved - and it sent them all scurrying into shops full of wood dust and hand-tools. They found peace there. Now the mass-production machines they turned their backs on are just another piece of our history, something that those tiring of the digital age and inkjet printers can turn back to in the same manner as the Arts and Crafters turned to their own tools.
Personally I can't see much similarity at all between these two movements and the art fashioned and printed during the industrial revolution. Was there anyone fighting for ye olde art of hand-writing the books? It seemed like every artist was on board, with a bit of an arms race being formed for the invention of the printing press. The church was even on top of it, quickly embracing mass-printing and production. The identical and beautiful pages were cherished for their novelty and efficiency of design, space, and duplication.
What was, back then, the cutting edge method of creating identical prints, has now became the modern method of getting prints that are NOT all identical. With the onset of the digital age and the printer, suddenly the subtle differences in ink placement on a pressed document became interesting and imperfect and beautiful.
These are movements based on relativity. What happens when we invent a hyper cube holographic imprinter? Won't the inkjet printer - with it's actual physical paper and liquid ink - suddenly be incredibly outdated and charmingly tangible? The imperfections in the printings due to low ink or misalignment will be sought after and embraced rather than thrown away as they are today. Classes will be taught 2D Digital Print instead of Printmaking, and it will because of the artistic and historical value alone.
I think that's why I balk so much at learning outdated methods of production, besides the fact that they aren't used in the career I want. At the rate technology is being invented, it won't be long before the modern methods I know so well will be obsolete. I'll be the grandma who is still stubbornly buying ink and using her old fashioned digital inkjet printer. My grandkids will laugh at how blotchy the liquid ink is and how funny it looks when it runs out of ink.
Actually, scratch that. I'll have the bloody printer around if it still works but I'll be darned if I'm not going to use whatever new technology the media companies have funded for production. I'm nostalgic, not stubbornly old-fashioned.
Monday, September 3, 2012
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