Paper given at the Annual Conference of The Association of European Printing Museums, The Relevance of Typographical Collections for Today’s Designers

Expanded abstract: This paper will begin with an introduction to the collection of printing equipment and reference materials housed within GSA’s Caseroom, alongside a brief account of the precedence of these materials. It will then go on to introduce the role of an Artist/Designer in Residence within such a facility and use selected collaborative projects with a wide variety of outcomes to chart the last ten years of activity. It will explore the concept of ‘contemporary design relevance’ when applied to the use of a collection of late 19th/early 20th century printing equipment. Specific projects will be used as case studies to draw out key themes. Projects such as the cover of Christian Bok’s Eunoia and design work for the pop band Franz Ferdinand raise the relevance of historical reference within graphic design with their allusions to the Oulipo and Blast magazine/The Vorticists, respectively. The use of specially commissioned printed matter in the making of large scale digital projections for the Museum of London or web based promotional materials for Warp Music provoke discussion on how and why letterpress can be used effectively for a digital output. Numerous posters made with nightclubs, bands and artists show the great attraction of hands-on making, D.I.Y. ethos and control of means of production, whilst also raising questions over the motivations behind design work digitally manipulated to emulate a printed aesthetic perceived as ‘traditional’. Work produced with Scott King, Duncan Campbell and Ciara Phillips will allow closer study of the motivations driving contemporary artists to use these now commercially redundant typographic printing techniques. This work also brings to the fore benefits that can be found in using letterpress printing as a collaborative process to produce new and original art and design. In this paper I will follow the journey I have undertaken as Designer in Residence over the past ten years discussing the experience of balancing historical understanding with contemporary typographic process and how this work fits into the wider context of current art and design practice.

RDF Funding was secured in order to deliver this paper at the AEPM conference.