Week 8: Production Processes

Analyse methods available to designers for self-publishing.

With the gentrification of Walthamstow post-Olympics, a number of industrial estates around Blackhorse Road that contained small printers have been sold to housing/foreign speculation developments, so that is out. However, there are craft businesses still open around me.

Paekakariki Press

This letterpress studio regularly holds workshops and takes commissions from for letterpress books. It uses a press that was the same model that William Morris used for his Kelmscott Press, so printing my project on this would draw on Walthamstow heritage.

However, the process will mean that I can only typeset, and I would really like to include images, so it would be a double process with another printer. I’d like the images and words to be more integrated than this. It would also be expensive to print a small number of copies.

Hato Press

Annie and I took a riso class here back in November, and this is a very possible technique for printing a piece. The bright colour printing and combination of colours make a punchy and eye-catching publication.

London Centre of Book Arts

To make a book, I could go to the London Centre for Book Arts to produce the book from scratch. It’s located very near the Olympic Park and is on an industrial state that survived the flattening of the land next to it. It might restrict me to a book (which is good in terms of giving myself boundaries) but that might not be the best format to produce this… I’m thinking.

New thought, it wouldn’t necessarily restrict me to a book. On sale in their shop was interesting formats including the A6 publishing, which has all its publications in A6 format: a simple but effective spec to keep the same to establish identity.

G.F. Smith

The obvious choice for paper! A few years ago they launched Extract, a paper made from recycling paper and coffee cups. A recycled paper would be the way to go. G.F.Smith has a digital booking service called Make Book, where your book can be made and printed in their factory in Hull to a high standard in small qualities.

Let’s think outside the box…

Exhibition space at The Mills

Now, Richard gave us some interesting ideas for what this project could be. It doesn’t have to be a book/magazine as such. So. There is a community centre in St James Street in the centre of Walthamstow that has an exhibition space. I could create the 3,000 words as part of exhibition displays – it wouldn’t be designed for a graphically literate audience though – it would be for people of Walthamstow.

Neon

As I reported for Week 1, neon has a huge part in the history of Walthamstow. As neon is supposed to draw attention to recreational places, so it is the perfect medium through which to display a piece about the Olympics.

Chalk Writing

I suspect the theme of my article will be that despite the billions poured into the area, the benefits to the local community were somewhat fleeting. The Olympic Park is full of vast paved areas that would have carried thousands of people a day, but are now barren years after. Once written, I could write the article on the paved areas in chalk and it would last as long as it didn’t rain.

Maps

To show the degree that the Lea Valley has been built over, I could create a map of the area and the facilities have been built. I would use mixed media in the form of wetlands paths to show how much the landscape has changed.

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