Category Archives: Print Matters

Print Matters

Virtual Print

By Aidan Koch | Published: August 31, 2010

Comics aren't just books anymore.

While the experience of reading comics online can never replace the joy of holding a freshly printed book in your hands, web comics have existed just about as long as the technology has been available to make them possible. They are particularly relevant for those of us whose jobs place us in front of computers for most of the day, bringing a little light to the systematic and repetitive existence entailed by such work.

While originally consisting primarily of shorts and daily funnies, you can now read a wide variety of comics online in different formats. Beyond the classics like Penny Arcade, the late Perry Bible Fellowship, and Slow Wave created by local Jesse Recklaw, here’s a sampling of some of my favorite sites to browse.

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Print Matters

Long Shot Magazine…GO!

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: August 26, 2010

"Using new tools to erase media's old limits."

Tomorrow at noon, the fine folks at Long Shot Magazine will announce the theme for their second experimental publication – and then you’ll have 24 hours to submit your work. Long Shot’s creative team will then have 24 hours to curate, edit, design and produce a publication. Sound crazy? Well, maybe. Maybe not.

Long Shot released Issue Zero (then called 48-hour Mag) back in May after a whirlwind 48 hours and a lot of hard work. The result was a finished publication that exceeded expectations – Long Shot took home a Knight-Batten Award for Innovation in Journalism and received attention from web and print media alike. The team behind Long Shot is top-notch, but not just because the project is spearheaded by leaders in the communication, publishing and technology worlds. The high caliber of Long Shot’s content will come from YOU, and the thousands of other contributors who together create a living network of creative collaboration.

This project is most compelling because of its seamless pairing of new approaches and traditional publishing. Creating a printed publication could be seen as an archaic approach to communication in our digital age, but Long Shot balances the traditional end-format of their project with contemporary methods of sourcing content and production. While you may be able to hold the end result in your hands (just like the old days!), the content will have reached your hands through an intricate process of crowd sourcing, social networking, emails and the print-on-demand revolution that is most certainly the future of publishing.

So, get ready to work fast! Sign up here to be notified when the theme launches tomorrow at noon. Read more about the process here. See you in 48 hours.

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Print Matters

Collateral Matters

By Clifton Burt | Published: August 24, 2010

Collateral Matters opens this week.

Brace yourself for blatant self-promotion:

This week marks the opening of Collateral Matters: Selections form the Museum of Contemporary Craft Archives with Kate Bingaman-Burt and Clifton Burt.

Using printed materials and ephemera from the Museum archive, the exhibition reveals stories about the history of printing and design in Portland, and communicates how such printed materials construct institutional identity.

Focusing primarily on the 1940s through the 1970s, the collateral materials on view provide a simple study of both intentionally and unintentionally designed pieces in the pre-desktop publishing era. The critical role of printshops is revealed through designed print pieces, such as invitations, posters and letterhead, and then contrasted alongside office paperwork – handwritten artist statements, pastel-toned invoices and receipts speckled with red “sale” dots, for example. In an installation designed to show the visual impact of printed materials, the guest curators engage typography from the mundane to the meticulously designed, showing how graphic language functions in a range of types of printed collateral.

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Print Matters

Webtype propels us into the future

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: August 20, 2010

Better fonts make better websites.

Ellen Lupton thinks typography is what language looks like. I think the internet is what the future looks like. So is Webtype what the future of language looks like?

This week marked the launch of Webtype, a new resource developed to equip web designers with a palette of quality, appropriate fonts for use online. With SoTA’s TypeCon2010 currently taking place in Los Angeles, the timing of the release of Webtype is apt, to say the least.

Webtype is the brainchild of a diverse cast of experts that include type veterans Font Bureau, Roger Black and Ascender Corporation. While the premise of the project itself is exciting enough–better type makes better websites–Webtype employs new approaches to typography that address new design challenges of our changing information landscape.

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Print Matters

Constellation: A Print-Lover’s Record Label

By Andrew Barton | Published: August 19, 2010

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra's latest release

Many of us grew up when physical, packaged music was the only option (even an album taped to cassette by a friend would probably have a paper cover). Thus poorly packaged albums could be sold for upwards of twenty dollars and retain their guaranteed audience. These days, that audience is harder to come by, and many labels have stepped up their act in the creation of high quality music packages.

Constellation Records (based in in Montréal, Quebec) has been making gorgeous, beautifully printed packages since 1997, with the release of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s F#A#oo.* Packaging, for Constellation, has seemingly always been as much a priority as the music contained inside. They exclusively use recycled papers and “old fashioned” print techniques like foil stamping, letterpress, limited-color offset, and silkscreening.

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Print Matters

Institute for the Future of the Book

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: August 17, 2010

"For now, we use the word 'book' broadly, even metaphorically, to talk about what has come before — and what might come next."

The Institute for the Future of the Book is a Brooklyn-based “think-and-do tank” that investigates the evolution of intellectual discourse as it shifts from the printed page to the screen. A project of the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California, if:book is charging ahead with documentation, interactive projects and a healthy dose of musing on the possibilities of what our intellectual landscape will look like in a hundred years (as well as tomorrow.)

This recent blog post on the future of the app is worth a read, and one project in particular called The Googlization of Everything got me lost in the internet for an hour. Issues of network neutrality, intellectual property and technology permeate the content on if:book’s blog as well as the projects that spurn from the institute’s many collaborations.

Check it out. Your brain will thank you.

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Print Matters

The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis

By Aidan Koch | Published: August 12, 2010

R. Crumb at the Portland Art Museum

Portlanders: anyone who has not gotten the chance to go see The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis at the Portland Art Museum needs to go soon. Rarely have comics met with the walls of museums, but this show marks a new and well-deserved turn. The book took Crumb over four years to render and it is filled with his trademark scratchy, exaggerated characters and cross-hatched detail.  It’s wonderful to look at all the pages up close and see his pen work, the waviness of the paper, and the dabs of white-out all over. It’s a truly unique experience because as you examine the pieces, you can’t help but get sucked into reading the text as well. Though the museum’s layout for the show is not the easiest to follow, you can always get the 224 page book if you’re itching to delve into it a little bit more.

The exhibit runs until September 19th. Tickets are $12 for adults or try and catch “Free Fourth Friday Night” at the museum on August 27 from 5-8pm. More information at www.portlandartmuseum.org.

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Print Matters

Books: the idea.

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: August 9, 2010

Books as books. Books as objects. Books as side tables, pinhole cameras, decoration and artwork.

Books: the idea is an ongoing project from journalist Rob Walker that brings together book-related bits and pieces of popular culture. As part of Walker’s more expansive Murketing blog, this Tumblr-housed subset collects articles, products, insights and projects that all somehow incorporate the concept of books.

We print nerds over here at Bangback are big fans. Whether I’m ogling a sculpture made from old books, getting riled up about the latest news in the e-book saga or learning about a new project that engages readers in a new way, Books: the idea is one of my first stops on the internet each morning. Walker has a keen curatorial filter for interesting stories that together weave a compelling picture of the current status of the book in our culture.

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Print Matters

Pop-Up Magazine

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: August 4, 2010

"The future of journalism is not happening online, but on stage." –Flavorpill Magazine

Pop-Up Magazine does not have a typical production schedule. No word counts, no ad builds, no kerning. But instead, when the newest issue of the magazine hits the streets, there is an auditorium full of “readers” watching, laughing out loud and applauding after each article comes to a close.

Pop-Up Magazine is the world’s first live magazine. Bringing together a talented cast of writers, photographers, filmmakers and radio producers, the magazine is performed in front of a studio audience. Though the format unfolds much like a typical magazine–short pieces in the front, features towards the end–the creators of Pop-Up are working in a new model of publishing that, well, doesn’t really feel like publishing at all.

But that’s how innovation works. It’s tricky. It’s unfamiliar. It’s new and it’s exciting.

Follow Pop-Up Magazine on Twitter and Facebook to stay in the loop. The next issue will be released–er, performed–on September 9 in San Francisco.

Tip via GOOD.

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Print Matters

Plazm 30 is on its way.

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: July 28, 2010

Plazm Magazine’s newsletter arrived in my inbox last week, with the exciting news that production is underway for their next issue. The theme of Plazm 30 is Rebirth.

Since 1991, Plazm Magazine has been a leading design and culture publication created right here in Portland, Oregon. Grown out of Plazm Design and founded by Joshua Berger, Jon Raymond and Tiffany Lee Brown, (Editor’s note: see comment below for clarification.) Plazm Magazine has been a creative resource for innovative content and an integral part of our creative landscape since its inception. Plazm Magazine’s new parent organization, New Oregon Arts & Letters, received an Opportunity Grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council that will help fund the production of the new issue.

Shoot an email to editor30@plazm.com with ideas for publication, to place an ad, or to make a tax-deductible contribution in support of Plazm. Keep up to date with Plazm Magazine happenings by subscribing to their newsletter on their homepage, or follow them on Twitter.

Image courtesy Plazm.com

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