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Draw Down

I Got Something to Say — Poster Inventory, 2013–2021

2 May 2022 in Books Comment

I Got Something to Say — Poster Inventory, 2013–2021 Cover

I Got Something to Say — Poster Inventory, 2013–2021 Detail

I Got Something to Say — Poster Inventory, 2013–2021 Back Cover

I Got Something to Say — Poster Inventory, 2013–2021

Texts by Jason Alejandro, Somnath Bhatt, Elias Chen, Ryan Diaz, Everett Epstein, Zak Jensen, Ian Lynam, Vaishnavi Mahendran, Anna Sagström, Christopher Sleboda, Kathleen Sleboda, and Mary Yang.

An inventory of posters produced by Draw Down Books for art book fairs, workshops, and lectures between 2013 and 2021. Documenting Draw Down’s activities throughout the period, the publication also graphically maps the contours of the artist book publishing world during the second decade of the 21st century. A series of reflections and essays by prominent graphic designers provides context and insights, providing readers with new ways of considering their own poster-making and event documentation.

Designed by Christopher Sleboda and Kathleen Sleboda

Published by Draw Down
First edition, 2022

Softcover
160 pages with Swiss binding and lay-flat cover
1-color offset printing
5 × 7.5 inches

ISBN: 978-1-73-347441-2

Draw Down

Tags design, Draw Down, posters

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020

11 January 2021 in Books Comment

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020 Cover 09

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020 Cover 01

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020 Spread 03

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020 Spread 04

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020 Spread 06

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020 Spread 02

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020 Spread 05

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020 Spread 07

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020 Spread 08

P_Pal: Issue 1, 2019-2020

This new annual publication from art book in China focuses on Chinese art publishing and the artist book publishing panorama of Greater China.

After looking back at the history of self-publishing and artist book practices in China, the project salvages early Chinese art publications from the ocean of the Internet. The result is a project that revels in a history suffused with freedom and romance, a history that also touches on China’s vibrant independent music scene.

In this first issue of P_PAL, the professional role and publishing process involved in art book publishing serves as the central narrative of the magazine. The issue includes guides on the production, distribution and printing of books (with special attention paid to the Risograph, screen printing, and other art printing methods) along with a historical overview of Chinese art publishing.

Published by DREAMER FTY, 2020
Second edition, limited print run of 500 copies

Bilingual Chinese and English

2 volumes: swan bound with coil binding
200 pages + 64 pages
Full color offset
7.25 × 9.5 inches

Draw Down Books

Tags Draw Down, Draw Down Books, P_Pal

Revue Faire no. 16, 17, 18

28 July 2020 in Magazines Comment

Revue Faire no. 16, 17, 18 Cover

Revue Faire no. 16, 17, 18

Faire is a bi-monthly publication dedicated to graphic design. Produced by Empire, the publishing arm of French design studio Syndicat (designers Sacha Léopold and François Havegeer), Faire is aimed at students as well as researchers and professional designers. Each issue addresses a specific object or theme and is written by a renowned author.

This anthology set includes three issues, numbers 16 through 18:

n°16 — A reproduction: what El Lissitzkzy wants. By James Langdon

I am rarely convinced when I see graphic design that was originally printed in two inks reproduced in four-color process. Before the advent of commercial color offset printing, the elementary colors of printing — from Gutenberg to Tschichold—were black and red. In the early twentieth century, black and red were used by graphic designers not to attempt to recreate the spectrum of colors that appear to the human eye, but as graphic forces in themselves. To make a distinction. To create dynamism. To embody ideology on the page. In particular, the combination of black and red on white paper has become synonymous with Suprematism and revolutionary Russian graphic design.

A contemporary imaging workflow can enable extraordinary reproductions of these historical aesthetics. A high-resolution digital photograph of an original black and red printed book from the 1920s can be processed using a color profile to calibrate its appearance across design, color correction in computer software, proofing, and printing. This workflow can ultimately achieve a beautiful and precise image of that graphic artifact as it looks today, down to small details of its patination, its discoloration by exposure to sunlight, and the many more other subtleties that define it as an archival object.

But such a reproduction exhibits a strange technical anachronism. What about the constraints that originally shaped the design of that book — the implicit connection between the two colors of its graphics and the architecture of the one- or two-color printing press on which it was printed? Are they not important? Can they even be reproduced?

I compare printed reproductions of the proud black and red cover of the book ‘Die Kunstismen’ (1925), designed by Russian artist and designer El Lissitzky. Published between 1967 and 2017, these images treat the material characteristics of the original book’s color in different ways, appealing to contradictory notions of fidelity.

n°17 — An acronym: ACAB. By Ariane Bosshard, Jérôme Dupeyrat, Olivier Huz and Julie Martin

The acronym ACAB, often seen in urban space in the form of graffiti or stickers, first appeared in the U.K. in the 1970s, linked to punk culture, and later found a certain popularity during the social movements of the 1980s. Meaning “All Cops Are Bastards”, over the last 20 years it has become widespread in public spaces internationally, in the wake of a number of political movements, from alter-globalization groups to the French gilets jaunes, or Yellow Jackets, along with black blocks and TAZs, even spawning different variations, such as “All Capitalists Are Bastards”, “All Colors Are Beautiful” and “All Cats Are Beautiful”.

Observing how ACAB (or its numerical version, 1312) is written, allows one to traverse multiple political landscapes, as well as a number of visual cultures (anarchist, punk, hip-hop, LOL) to which this acronym has spread. It is through this scriptural, graphic, and visual movement that it has become both a sign of recognition and a polysemic statement.

n°18 — A studio visit: the studio of Ines Cox. By Manon Bruet and Julia Andréone

Three women walk into a bar. The first lives in a large apartment in Anvers, Belgium. The second is an independent Graphic Designer who founded her own studio. The third is an avatar—you might even know her—with a certain interest in creative processes, their interfaces, and their vocabularies. Together, they eat some pistachio nuts, order vodka, and are not at all sure about getting up the next day to teach at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. But together, more than anything else, they form the troubling multiple personalities of Ines Cox, a Belgian Graphic Designer who met Julia Andréone and Manon Bruet in her studio in June 2019. This publication develops a narrative driven by three voices and traces the outline of a path, a practice, and a figure.

Published by Editions Empire
Bilingual, in French and English

60 pages total, each issue separately bound, b&w and color images, 8.25 × 11.75 inches

Draw Down

Tags design, Draw Down, Revue Faire

Is the Internet Down?

24 April 2020 in Magazines Comment

Is The Internet Down Cover

Is The Internet Down Back Cover

Is the Internet Down?

Written in response to work by featured designers and artists, Is the Internet Down? weaves together pop culture references and statistical facts about the greatest network of our time. The publication playfully examines the history of the Internet, with nods to world domination; the physical and emotional cost to humans; network fragility; pornography; and cinematic depictions of cyberspace.

With contributions from Keira Alexandra, Alexis Mark, Bráulio Amado, Micah Barrett, Hanna Bergman, Erika Blair, Lake Buckley, Amanda Charchian, Seokhoon Choi, Martina Cox, Christopher Delorenzo, Dinamo, Antoine Elsensohn, Cem Eskinazi, Fabian Fohrer, Joshua Graver, Hubert & Fischer, Shira Inbar, Zak Jensen, Biba Košmerl, Tim Lahan, Micah Lexier, Pigo Lin, Cyana Madsen, John F. Malta, Isaac McKay-Randozzi, Sadie Pinn, The Rodina, Christopher and Kathleen Sleboda, Sakaria Studio, Todd St. John, Sulki and Min, Axel Pelletanche Thévenart, Margherita Urbani, Very Tender, Franci Virgili and Mary Yang.

Designed by Partition

Published by Draw Down
First edition, 2019
52 pages
1-color offset
5.5 × 8.5 inches
ISBN: 978-1-73-347440-5

Draw Down Books

Tags Draw Down

The Elusive Archive

23 April 2020 in Books Comment

The Elusive Archive 001

The Elusive Archive 002

The Elusive Archive 003

The Elusive Archive 004

The Elusive Archive

A reinterpretation of the printed 50-year archive of Biennale Interieur, Belgium’s major international design exhibition.

The archive, comprised of over three hundred magazines and newspapers, offered Specht Studio and collaborator Levi Lanser the opportunity to (re)shape, (re)interpret, and (re)invent the archive by selecting and publishing scans from the publications.

Rational content was approached in an intuitive way, with just a few parameters: 1) Intuitive action (picking the magazine); 2) Structured action (setting a timeframe); 3) Structured action (three scans); 4) Intuitive action (a personal scan).

Because the results were unknown, Specht and Lanser called the work an “elusive archive.” Elusive—meaning difficult to find, catch, or achieve.

The final publication features forty posters, as well as a transcription of an email conversation about the project between Specht and Lanser. A full list of magazines used in the project is recorded on the cover noting title, publishing date, and type of content used for the publication.

Published by Stockmans, in collaboration with Specht Studio and Levi Lanser

Conceived for The New Masters, a project by DIFT for Biennale Interieur 2018 in Kortrijk, Belgium.

Printed in a limited, individually numbered edition of 300 copies

80 pages
Unbound broadsides
Full color
12 × 16.5 inches

ISBN: 978-9-07-720755-0

Draw Down Books

Tags Draw Down, Draw Down Books, The Elusive Archive

Back Office 3: Writing The Screen

17 April 2020 in Magazines Comment

Back Office 3: Writing The Screen

Back Office 3: Writing The Screen

This third issue of Back Office is devoted to various experiences of reading on screens. Over the course of the last decades, this change has introduced deep shifts, the effects of which are still being assessed.

Following the possible end of linear writing—predicted by the “communicologist” Vilém Flusser as early as the 1970s—the philosopher Jacques Derrida reflected on the “end of paper” as the primary medium for inscription. The proliferation of screens and the dawn of the internet paved the way for expressive forms falling under the category of an enlarged “graphosphere,” presumably still dominated by the norms and figures of paper (consider the concepts of lines, the sheet, the page, paragraphs, margins, etc.).

Could the task of the designer be to accompany, as smoothly as possible, this transition from one technical era to the next, or could it be, on the contrary, to postpone the passage from paper to screen?

Back Office is an annual review, encompassing graphic design and digital activities. It explores the creative processes at work in the diverse fields of contemporary media and digital practices. By dealing with themes such as the code/form relation, the challenges of creative tools, and the permeable nature of media, it represents a unique French-speaking think tank and a worldwide vehicle to raise the visibility of the French design scholarship.

Designed by Élise Gay & Kévin Donnot

Published by Éditions B42 and Fork Éditions, 2019
Bilingual, in French and English
144 pages
Color and b&w images
7.75 × 11 inches

ISBN: 978-2-49-007712-0

Draw Down Books

Tags Back Office, Draw Down, Draw Down Books

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