I’ve been bouncing around an idea since the beginning of the semester that I’d like to make a book. That is, an actual bound book that is handmade to be given as a gift for a friend. Of course, that was before I began researching into that that would entail. I freely admit to having underestimated at the start how much work is involved in such an endeavor. Underestimating also how much money will likely be required.
The reading for this post is “The Letterpress and the Mimeo Revolution” by Kyle Schlesinger from the book Paper Dreams. It is meant to help us explore what is at stake for the Toyon when making decisions about printing and production. My role doesn’t require that I immerse myself in design and layout, but every staff member is encouraged to do so. Going back to my friend, she wrote a book she never intends to publish and a copy as a PDF file rests in my laptop. When I initially had ideas about turning her book into a physical copy, I used up a free trial with InDesign to play around with the layout. I’ve come to see the approach to the Toyon is not at all removed from the same I had played around with. They both require a lot of work and planning. Layout requires decisions to be made about the minutiae. Design requires careful thought given to balancing what will be in the content and what you think will make others reach out to pick up the book. The big difference lies in that I make all the decisions in my personal project and with the Toyon everyone is open to suggest ideas. What I wasn’t anticipating with either is how much those decisions reflect back on us; “DIY is about making decisions and asking questions about who we are, what we do, and how we live, because writing, like printing, is both a thing and an activity, (pg. 191, Paper Dreams).” Every year the Toyon is printed the students have to make choices. Choices about the cover, the material the book will be printed out of, the layout, etc. Choices beyond the content that’s chosen to be published in it, and yet just as important. These decisions are a reflection of what each year’s collective group of students value and want to represent themselves. Schlesinger writes that the affinity for mimeo culture, magazines born out of the sixties in DIY fashion, has seen a similar reemergence in this age of technology where anyone with a computer can craft and design all online. It’s difficult to sum up what’s at stake for the Toyon when considering printing options as politics and economics always change. A see-saw of options between “going green” and affordability, glossy covers or choosing more pages, whether there will always be enough money to fund publishing or whether fundraising will become inevitable and how to go about it, and so on. What students have to consider, year after year, as representatives of their own eras, is how their choices reflect not only the physical copy of their work but what they are saying with it. The Reading For This Post: **Schlesinger, Kyle. "The Letterpress and the Mimeo Revolution." Paper Dreams. Madison, NJ: Atticus Books, 2013. 185-191. Print.
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About These Blog PostsWhile we work on the Toyon we must also blog about it. Sometimes it's through simple updates and sometimes we will be given specific assignments that we must answer. Archives
December 2016
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