09 Making Books. Weird Systems
The Encyclopedia of Impressions, Timon MeuryThe Building of a Book, Ruby Healey
Type & Publishing Studio
Making Books. Weird Systems
– Stuart Geddes
Studio InqiuryMaking books. Weird Systems. explores the way we might work with systems and patterns and structures to make books that are at once familiar and strange. Books are built on systems for typesetting, for page composition, for print production, for distribution. They are also built on systems of reading, histories of usage, and challenges to all of these conventions. We make systems in order to manage complexity, or to generate clarity, but what if we made systems for different reasons? What if we made a system whose purpose was confounding, or poetic?
In this studio, we will investigate systematic book making, through theoretical, practical, technical and poetic perspectives, and we will learn about books by designing and producing books. Students will make a series of books, and we will have a stall at the NGV Art Book Fair, during which we will get to know a community of publishers and book makers.
EngagementThe studio engages in theoretical, historical and practice-based forms of research concerned with the contemporary practice of book design and publishing-as-practice. Students will develop a variety of ways of thinking about and approaching the making of books, as well as specific technical knowledge about book typography, the construction of complex grids, and books as systems.
ActivitiesOver the course of the semester students will design and produce (at least) three books. In some instances the projects involve also be authoring content or collecting and curating content. Students will need to be willing to work in unconventional ways and develop historically and theoretically informed ways of working. In the
studio will discuss, design, critique and produce books. 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.
Brief OneBook as investigation/documentary
Brief TwoBook as speculation
Brief ThreeBook as critical archive (SKO)
Readings
Self-publishing: Graphic Designers as Editors, Florine Bonaventure, 2012
Explore Past student work via Are.Na