Wish You Were Here- Option Shift Control Workshop

A few of us attended a symposium held at North Carolina State University in November called Option Shift Control. The focus was on the relationship between designers and users in an increasingly participatory culture.

Ryan, Tony, Kristian and I designed a workshop where we forced participants to surrender control of their designs and work with larger and larger groups to create a single piece of work. We decided on a postcard theme because we knew people would be traveling in from a number of different places and each person would want to share their experience and thoughts with others back home. We titled the workshop “Wish You Were Here.”

Participants were issued an envelope full of supplies and Letraset and had to react to a word. The list of words related to notions of home and travel, such as memory, secret, souvenir and destination. Then, every few minutes we would group them with their neighbor and pass their work along for others to use in new collages. By the end, each person ended up in a group of 4-5 working on a single composition.

While the symposium is long over, we are wrapping up our part of the workshop by using the compositions to create postcards that will be mailed to all participants. The above image is my postcard. I cheated by not using any art from the workshop and created a new piece based on another attendee’s inquiry.

Spring 2008 Goals and What Have You

Tony and I talked about writing mission statements for this semester. His took the form of a list of things to complete and mine turned into this. He is willing to sign in blood if I do the same.

The Numbers Are Off
Going forward, weeks will be numbered as the total number of weeks left in my graduate experience, not the number of weeks that have passed in a single semester. So week one of the fall semester was actually week 64, week two was week 63, so on and so on.

Log Hours
Focus on maximizing my time here at MICA.

Prime the Pump for Summer
Do some freelance work and explore the few contacts I have in Baltimore. Search for interesting ways to spend my time between weeks 33 and 32.

Do the Robot
Keep working on distributing my paper robot. Copyright, correct the die, produce instructions and run a new batch.

Read
Them books is good. I have six books selected for this semester.

Eviscerate the Notebooks
Create laundry list of potential explorations and project ideas that have accumulated in my notebooks over that past 4 years. Maintain on a large piece of paper tacked to the wall beside my door. Move through and add to as needed.

Group Work
Plan projects with interested parties. Create specific goals and time lines to keep things moving. Make sure explorations are of value for all involved.

Create Work for First Year Show
Gallery shows present an interesting opportunity for designers as our work is usually presented in the wild.

Approach New Material and Skills with an Open Mind
You don’t know what you don’t know.

Keep Eyes Open for Thesis Topics
My thesis is around here somewhere, I just need to find it.

Letraset Supply

I found some quality Letraset in an art supply store I used to frequent as an undergrad at Akron U. They still had their supply of Letraset and Geotype and a brand I’m unfamiliar with, Cello-Tak (which was so old it no longer transfers). I found some large Clarendon numerals (192 pt.), several pages of icons, illustrations and lots of other interesting elements (oil field icons and receptacle outlets).

The Tiniest Robot

This will be the last robot post for awhile– promise. The nice thing about the pattern is that I can make a robot any size. The largest one at the moment is about 15 inches tall and the smallest is one inch. I used tweezers, an awl and my giant, meaty fingers to put him together.

Friday Night Fight– Round Two

Who could refuse free paper robots and letraset? Only a few.

Scrap Book

Instead of tossing all my newsprint from my letterpress course, I stitched it up into a book.

The Mean Streets of Baltimore

Looks like 6 done got got.

Initial Cap Specimen Book

For the final project in my letterpress/book arts class, I printed my collection of initial caps to use as a specimen book. I went with a screw post binding so I can easily add to books should I acquire more blocks or pull out pages for scanning. Their are two books in the set, one arranged by letter and another arranged by style. The tip-in on the covers have been recessed to elevate the over all presentation.

They ended up being bricks and a bit cumbersome to “flip” through. A slimmer, more stick-like proportion would have worked better.

Enter the Robot– Die, Robot, Die

Once I worked out all the kinks in the design, I had a die made to cut, score and ready the paper for assembly. If you’ve never seen a die, it looks like a piece of plywood with slots cut in it. In those slots fit steel strips that either cut, score or perf the substrate. Dies are used to cut, fold or perf paper so it can be converted into anything more complex than a flat sheet of paper. Imagine an envelope before it’s all folded up and glued– a die is used to create that shape.

So with a lead from another first-year, I contacted a die maker in West Baltimore to see if he could make a die for my robot. For $540 he said he could. I worked with my letterpress professor to run it on an Vandercook SP20 after practicing with an old die that makes cigarette packs.

The following photos shows the process. First the die locked is locked up on press and a hand-applied matrix (tape) is built on the cylinder. The red foam on each side of the knives protects them and also pushes the paper off the die so it doesn’t stick. The matrix forces the paper onto the die and creates the crease. Once everything was set, the paper is run through the press and is cut and scored. In the end I converted over 700 pieces of robot-ready paper.

Studio Space

This is my work space at its worst over the course of this semester.