“Booklet, 12 pages. Saddle stitch binding. Light blue cover. Single color printing. Black ink on white paper.”
Including the names of these structures allow me to begin filling the gaps in knowlge. By including them, I hop that their presence would spark curiosity among viewers and provide insight to those researching book structures., I could contribute to the dialogue between the object and its makers, and lend what I knew as a book artist and archival worker to future researchers and visitors.
Download the complete Vanishing Culture report Through writing
Many of the objects I have catalog during my time with this collection bear signs of use: paragraphs of type circl in ballpoint pen or cut out entirely, lead-smudg fingerprints likely left by typesetters, signatures coming undone from their text blocks. These details are the most precious to me. They are instances in which an object left an impression on its reader, and in turn, its readers left a tangible impression on the object.
By making note of these imperfections in the metadata
I hope to preserve the labor and relational special database of the objects, and in a way, center the people who made them. 92 years ago, typography scholar Beatrice Warde argu that good printing should aim to be almost invisible, likening the rare success to a crystal goblet fill with wine (Warde 11, 13). Imperfect, dog-ear, oxidizing type specimens upend this notion, instead placing emphasis on construction and transformation rather than content.
The text includ in type ephemera
Is not meant to convey a china leads or narrative; rather, it is present to center and sell the type. As letterpresses are no longer the primary means of print production, new styles of letterpress printing have become popular—one example offering both agility and stability the “bite” or heavy impression of type into paper—revealing first and foremost, the hand of the printer.