How and why do you publish?

How: We publish between two and five books per year, call ourselves a publisher, and use traditional publishing distribution channels.

Why: We understand our culture through the objects our society creates. We think that books are the most intimate objects. You can see, read, touch, and smell them. For this reason books are the optimal way to engage with a subject matter. There is an intimacy in familiarizing yourself with a subject through holding and reading a book. This is why books are important to us and why we spend our time and money producing them.

What type of material do you publish?

We create our own projects usually, meaning that we conceptualize, curate, and edit the publications, but we rely heavily on the contributions of others. But we have on occasion published books by our friends that they have made entirely.

How do you distribute your work?

We mainly distribute through our platform (actualsource.org) We also have a European distributor (Antenne) and they supply bookstores in the UK and Europe with our books. In the United States we self-distribute to retailers. Book fairs have been a big part of how we engage with the publishing community and do give us a big shot in the arm in terms of sales when we attend.

What challenges do publishers face today?

Being a US publisher means that you are mainly self-funded (completely self-funded, in our case) as opposed to many European publishers, who are able to use arts grants to facilitate projects. So that means we are taking large financial risks every time we publish a book. Sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don’t.

How have you addressed the challenges?

The realities of this have forced us to shift focus to publishing projects that have a better chance of selling well. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, only that it has to factor in.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

When we speak about our work, we do distinguish between our publishing practice and our design practice, I suppose because they are two different businesses that make money differently. Although we do consider publishing as a medium for our design work—we do differentiate.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

One that is not run for profit and is meant only to disseminate ideas.

How and why do you publish?

I have published four books, each one differently. Most recently, I wrote The Detroit Printing Co-op: The Politics of the Joy of Printing (Inventory Press, 2019). In 2012 I coedited Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit with Lana Cavar and Natasha Chandani. That book was published by Metropolis Books, which at the time was an imprint of Distributed Art Publishers (DAP). I’ve also published two books that I think of more as “artist books,” like they’re not really meant to be read: Marking the Dispossessed (Passenger, 2015) and Sixteen Months Worth of Drawings in Microsoft Excel (Various Projects, 2006). I have also self-published a few smaller publications.

I find the book form to be rewarding, even though I always wonder if anyone really reads them. But a book can take a long time to pull together, and as a graphic designer who also does research, it’s satisfying to be able to research, write, and design something.

What type of material do you publish?

I publish my own material with other publishers.

How do you distribute your work?

Two of the books I’ve published, Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies (with Lana Cavar and Natasha Chandani) and The Detroit Printing Co-op are distributed by DAP. The Excel book is sold out, and I believe most of the sales took place online or in New York at Various Projects, the physical store run by Elizabeth Beer and Brian Janusiak. I mostly sell Marking the Dispossessed at book fairs, though I haven’t participated in that many. That book is a collection of readers’ marks and notes left in one hundred used copies of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. When I have tabled at book fairs, I often bring some of my used copies of The Dispossessed to sell along with Marking the Dispossessed. It helps a lot to be able to have your books distributed by a group like DAP because they will ensure that it gets into stores.

What challenges do publishers face today?

The main challenge is funding. The issues that face image-heavy or art book publishers are pretty different from, for instance, poetry or trade book publishers. Profit margins on art book sales are fairly low unless a book can be printed in the tens of thousands. The biggest cost for publishing an art book is printing. Other visual-specific expenses might be image rights, hiring a photographer, hiring someone to help format images, paying for prepress, et cetera. The costs are much higher than with trade books that have no images, yet art books generally cannot support retail sales prices that are much higher than trade books.

How have you addressed the challenges?

I apply for grants. Either the publisher will pay for printing, or I have managed to fundraise to cover the cost of printing. I live in Detroit, where we are one of five US cities that receive Knight Foundation grants for art projects. These require artists to find matching funds, and with my most recent project I was able to apply for internal grants at Wayne State University, where I work, to make a match.

How and why do you publish?

We work with visual artists on editions and we make our own books, which either develop from our own art practices or research. We got into publishing because we wanted to work with artists free from the conventional art world or gallery structure. David and I are both artists, and we have met a lot of other artists whose work we love, and publishing seemed like the best way to work with them. The book or edition is theirs, but we get to collaborate with them in a way that is significant and hopefully useful to their practice.

I think that oftentimes it can be so hard for artists to participate in the art world in conventional ways, but through books and editions, they can be acquired into collections, curated into exhibitions and mostly on their own terms.

There are also a lot of projects that we come across that are not necessarily art projects and the material would be difficult to work with in any other way. For example, the rave flyer series is about highlighting these cultural documents that we feel are important and deserve attention. A lot of it is about preserving an alternative history or subculture but also about coming up with projects that align with our interests so that we are excited about each one.

What type of material do you publish?

We just recently finished our second volume of The Basement Tapes which is a project we’ve been wanting to work on for a very long time. Colpa shares a studio with Mitsu Okubo, David Bayus and Ross Waitman that we call the basement. Together we’ve amassed a VHS collection of our favorite movies, mostly horror and sci-fi, and we’ve been trying to figure out the best way to share this with people. Each volume of The Basement Tapes is 100 VHS tapes, photographed front and back and published in an edition of 100. There is also a special edition that comes with a video mixtape, t-shirt and a drawing by Mitsu Okubo. We think of it as an elaborate fanzine or document of the relationship we have to this material. We want to collect and preserve it but also share it with people.

How do you distribute your work?

Primarily through our participation in book fairs, although that’s changed a lot recently due to the pandemic. Book fairs such as BKABF have been great at adapting those experiences to a virtual space and we’re looking forward to Printed Matter’s Virtual Art Book Fair. Lately, we have been relying on online sales and wholesale, and luckily a lot of bookstores and record stores have been coming up with great ways to stay open and continue to push our publications. We are extremely grateful for this as about half of our editions go to shops.

What challenges do publishers face today?

I would say one of the toughest challenges is finding ways to produce books locally. We recently purchased a digital press which was a huge relief, but at the same time it was a huge cost we couldn’t anticipate. Up until before the pandemic hit, I was printing a lot of our books at SFAI, so when all the schools shut down, I had to come up with another way to keep working. We try to do a lot of our production in-house but working with local print shops, finishers and binders is very important to us. So many of these shops have closed now and it's becoming increasingly difficult, but all the more important that we continue to work with the ones that are left.

How have you addressed the challenges?

Mostly by internalizing a lot of our production and cultivating relationships with local businesses. For example there is a third-generation finishing shop on South Van Ness called JR Press that we use a lot. They don’t print or bind, but they do die cutting, perforation and foil stamping. We try to find different ways to use them for their specific skills while keeping a lot of the production in our studio. We also work with On Line Bindery in Richmond quite a bit.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

David and I both value our respective art practices, but I think we consider publishing a part of them. We often publish our own books that are the result of working on something that would be best expressed through a book, and we have the resources to do so. Between that and the fact that, depending on the project, we are putting a lot of our ideas into publishing, there is definitely a blurring of those lines. We value our independent art practices but I don’t think you should ever worry about categorizing what you are doing and what each project fits into, or for that matter whether you are a designer or an artist or an archivist. Just focus on the work itself and let it fall where it may.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

I would say that any artist-run press is radical and progressive. The artist-run model of publishing promotes ideas above all else. If your idea is good enough or interesting enough, it matters a little less how scalable or commercially viable it is. I think there is a directness and honesty to that. To some extent, artist-run publishers are providing a platform for other artists (and ourselves) to communicate directly with an audience, free from institutional approval or validation.

How and why do you publish?

We co-run the Bay Area chapter of Publication Studio, PSSF. We also run a community print room called P.E. Area out of an art and education space, 2727 California Street, based in Berkeley. The question of why we publish feels quite specific to the space and the community. By opening up our process and resources to the public, the act of publishing becomes a means of working in an inherently collaborative way—whether working with an artist in depth or helping support others in self-publishing through informal education around design, production, or distribution. It’s the exchanges that take place within this mode of publishing as a public process that feel the most meaningful to us and the communities we are fortunate enough to work within.

What type of material do you publish?

The materials we publish through PSSF are primarily other people’s work, often writers and artists who are local to the Bay Area. P.E. Area is an education project that helps support and facilitate the process of self-publishing: from conceptualization of a project to design, printing, binding, and distribution. We work with a wide range of people and age groups, including 2727’s neighbors, students, teachers, local artists and poets, and community organizers.

How do you distribute your work?

We distribute our work online through our website, at book fairs, and locally at 2727. We also share our publications with the community through organizing programming to activate and engage each project, such as talks, workshops, performances, and meals.

What challenges do publishers face today?

Admin! We spend a lot of time emailing, creating spreadsheets, and maintaining those spreadsheets, and often pay a significant amount of money out of pocket for production. We’re happy when we break even on a project and are able to pay our collaborators.

How have you addressed the challenges?

We’ve been experimenting with our scale of production. Rather than producing hundreds of books all at once, we focus on making smaller runs in phases, which is a core tenet of the Publication Studio model. Additionally, rather than distributing widely through traditional channels, we devise more intimate forms of distribution specific to each publication, helping us to work within our means. In regard to admin, we have an email auto-responder that helps to set expectations, since neither PSSF nor P.E. Area are our full-time job.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

We don’t! The way in which we operate as publishers is not income producing, but allows us to experiment and test ways of working as designers and educators that have direct effects on everything else we do and make.

How and why do you publish?

It’s based on our interests. Daewoong Kim and I met at a design company in late 2009 as intern designers. I went army after two months of internship, and when I had chances to take vacations, I talked to Daewoong about making a serial publication together about things we’re interested in—local markets, planting, strolling. We called the publication Corner, but have yet to make a single issue. Then we bought a Risograph machine to control our publishing environment easily, but at that time we didn’t know how to use it, so our interest was “how to use this machine effectively.” We made several publications with this printing technique.

There weren’t many people in our area who used the Risograph, so we naturally got interested in foreign printing houses and publishers that use it. Luckily, we were able to participate in the workshop program for the Magical Riso conference at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in 2016. We also had a talk there. From that point on, we met the world’s Risograph printers. And when people from all over the world travel to Seoul, those who are interested in graphic design, Risograph, and self-publishing visit our office. Some of them present at art book fairs in their city, and we were lucky to be invited to participate in some art book fairs in Asia and Europe through these opportunities.

What type of material do you publish?

At first we published books using self-created text or images. We’ve been printing and publishing other authors’ work since 2015 using our printing machines. In the latter case, we engage in editing and design.

How do you distribute your work?

We mainly sell our books at our own online/offline shop and domestic bookshops in South Korea. Some are available in some bookstores in other countries like the United States, Japan, and China. We also often participate in both domestic and international art book fairs. Considering travel expenses, participating in overseas art book fairs is a bit like gambling, but it’s always great to go to a foreign art book fair and see the city and the people.

What challenges do publishers face today?

Speaking only for ourselves, we don’t feel we’re facing significant challenges in our publishing practice right now. But we’re facing small challenges. We started making books to show people what we can print using our machine, or to let people know how they can use our shop (printing), or since 2012 to work with other artists who we wanted to work with. Now, some say that Risograph-generated publications seem all the same—simple drawings, recognizable layers, off registration, smudges, fluorescent pink. We guess that this whole criticism of the particular printing method is because of its way of printing images and its visual characteristics.

How have you addressed the challenges?

Risograph is arguably a useful tool that can produce books and prints with great cost and time efficiency. But in 2019, where we’re living and working, it’s not super expensive to make books and prints using whatever printing methods. So we have a choice now regarding which printing technique suits the content.

As a publishing and Risograph printing house, we’re trying to maximize our use of the machine. We’re maximizing our neighborhood, Chungmuro, where 60 to 70 percent of Seoul’s printing business is based. We’re experimenting with different bookmaking methods using our Risograph.

How does being based in Korea influence your practice?

We are first based in Korea, then Seoul, then Euljiro, with each layer influencing our practice. Seoul is a city with a fast pace and strong creative energy, and the industries related to art and design culture are concentrated which benefit our practice. In addition, Eulji-ro is a dense area with printing and finishing companies, so we’re able to be more involved in the design process.

How would you describe the book and publishing culture in Korea?

It is difficult to explain the Korean book and publishing culture comprehensively, but I can talk about the domestic independent publishing culture. In 2012, we first participated in the 4th Unlimited Edition, Seoul’s Art Book Fair. At that time, the number of visitors was recorded at 3,600. During last year’s Book Fair in 2019, the number of visitors grew to around 22,000.

So just over the past seven years, the scale and interest of new publications, publishers, bookstores, and book fairs have increased. There is now a stage where young up-and-coming creators, renowned individuals, publishers, and educational institutions are taking part alongside each other. These activities have become a medium for creators to practice autonomy and independence.

What are some of the challenges when publishing in multiple languages?

I have not yet experienced publishing with multiple languages, since I am mostly interested in publishing visual works over typographic works with the risograph.

How do the works you publish address a certain need or community in Korea, or maybe even in the world?

I’m sorry, I have no idea about this question.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

I don’t think we distinguish our practices. As I said earlier, we like to work on our own interests. We’ve been working with various illustrators as well because we believe that the printing machine we’re using works really nicely with illustrations. And we make books about Risograph, which we’re using everyday basically. I’m not sure how intentional this all is. It just naturally happened.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

Sorry, I have no idea.

How and why do you publish?

There is a lot of beautiful work being created in this world that is not the result of market research and doesn’t cater to the lowest common denominator, isn’t concerned with whatever is hip right now, or is simply overlooked by the established publishing channels. And that’s the kind of work we’re often interested in publishing. We started Emigre magazine to publish our own work and ideas and the work of our friends who were all struggling to get their work shown. A magazine seemed like an easy shortcut to circumvent the regular route of galleries and museums and publishing houses, and to share the work with the public. Of course we had no idea how difficult it is to distribute a magazine. But we figured it out through the school of hard knocks, and eventually, after much hard work, it we became successful at it.

We participate in the world of publishing because having our work distributed and displayed in bookstores where it is surrounded by books of all kinds couldn’t be more satisfying. If it’s the artists’ responsibility to make their work public, then there’s no better way to do this than by publishing the work in book form, in multiples, and to have it for sale at an affordable price in bookstores everywhere. I find that actually more satisfying than having the work in a museum or for sale in a gallery, which can be a bit too precious.

What type of material do you publish?

We’ve published a magazine, digital typefaces, books, music CDs, posters, T-shirts, and fine art prints. We’ve published self-generated work, and we’ve collaborated with many other artists, writers, poets, musicians, designers, and design schools.

How do you distribute your work?

Currently it’s almost entirely online, and we’re getting our feet wet with art book fairs. The book fairs, which seem to be exploding in frequency and popularity, are a very satisfying venue for selling publications because you sell directly to the people you make the work for. There are no intermediaries. And you get to witness firsthand how people respond to your work. You can’t beat that experience. Book fairs are like the farmer’s markets of the publishing industry.

What challenges do publishers face today?

The main challenge, for us, and I imagine for most publishers, is distribution. Today, with all the on-demand printing, just about anybody can make a book or a magazine. There’s nothing to it. But publishing literally means making something public. And that’s the hard part. Getting books into stores, into people’s hands, which is ultimately why we publish, takes a lot of effort.

How have you addressed the challenges?

It’s always been a struggle. When we self-published, we did all our own distribution, meaning we shipped directly to stores around the world. But it was all on a consignment basis, which required a lot of follow-up calls to see if store copies needed to be replenished and trying to get paid. Since then, we’ve eased off on self-publishing. Most of our books are now published by Gingko Press, a small publisher in Berkeley, and they take on all the hard work of getting books printed and distributed.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

We don’t really have any other practice except publishing. We have always created our own products, and rarely do work for hire for clients.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

I’m not sure what that would be. You’re either successful at publishing or not. It either pays for itself or it doesn’t. But maybe I misunderstand the question. Perhaps a progressive method would be publishing through Kickstarter. But Kickstarter still feels odd to me. What if you don’t reach your goal, are you now not publishing your book or magazine that you’ve worked on so diligently? I can’t help but think what would have happened if Kickstarter had been around in 1984 when we started Emigre, and we had been unable to get Emigre funded. We most likely would not have pursued it any further. So you’re back to letting others decide whether your project is worthy of publishing right from the start. We simply emptied our own bank accounts to get Emigre started because we believed in it. And it took a while to get it going and to convince people it was a worthy endeavor. And it was a lot of work to keep it going. Perhaps self-funding can be considered radical?

How and why do you publish?

We (Drew Litowitz, Angela Lorenzo, Sarah Mohammadi, and Lauren Traugott-Campbell) decided to publish a print magazine as a way to address the role of tactility in an increasingly digital world. While there are a number of publications about senses like sight, taste, and hearing, we felt that touch was a rich, under-explored field that could help us understand the present moment. We had all also recently finished graduate graphic design programs and were missing the extended community that those programs foster. We wanted to re-create that creative environment and expand upon it by including unexpected contributions from an interdisciplinary set of contributors.

What type of material do you publish?

In our first issue, we are publishing a combination of visual work, essays, poems, and interviews from outside contributors, as well as a small portion of self-generated work. We hosted an open call and selected around twenty-five pieces, some already completed, and others submitted as proposals. Over the course of several months we are working with contributors to edit and finalize their contributions.

How do you distribute your work?

For distribution of our first issue, we are doing preorders, online sales, and art book fairs. We are hoping to be in conversation with shops once we have the publication in hand.

How have you addressed the challenges?

As a publication addressing tactility, we felt that it was important that the publication be printed editions; however, we try to do as many preorders as possible so that we do not over-print. We also partnered with artists and designers to make custom, limited-edition merchandise, and put these profits toward production. In terms of the content of the publication, we had a lot of internal conversations at the beginning to make sure we felt like feeeels would occupy a unique, under-represented voice in the publication field. We’re hopeful that the number of submissions and general support we’ve received in advance of the first issue means that those questions have been addressed.

How do you think about the graphic identity for your imprint?

Each issue features a custom-designed typeface inspired by the theme of that issue. As such, we do not have a logo or fixed identity per se, but rather an ever-evolving feel with each issue. This typeface, feeeels—fuzzy, was created by Jack Halten Fahnestock.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

We are four graphic designers with our own practices outside of feeeels; however, we all see publishing as an integral part of our creative practices. Our intent is to use the magazine as a tool for exploring the collective aspect of our practices, where collaboration informs ways of working and the work itself. In some cases, we have also used the magazine as an opportunity to explore content that we have always been curious about and test visual ideas that are difficult to “sell” in client-facing work.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

A radical model of publishing practice is one that operates not expressly for capital or return on investment, but rather out of a desire to engage a public in dialogue about new and diverse perspectives and shared human experiences and concerns. As a new collaborative, we are interested in a working model that operates laterally as opposed to hierarchically. We all read submissions, edit, and design the publication together. This is perhaps a less “efficient” way of working, but here, efficiency isn’t the goal. The result is a working method after the workers’ collective model, where we all share in the labor and rewards of this process. All profits from sales of the publication go toward creating the next issue.

How and why do you publish?

Gato Negro Ediciones is an independent publishing project based in Mexico City founded in 2013. Our main activity is publish books. Then after, all the activities related and required for their dissemination, circulation and discussion, as well as the construction and care of a community around it. Our entire model of production is based on aformal, conceptual and practical economy of efficiency, austerity and sustainability.

Our main activity is the nurture and administration our three essential assets.

A methodology and a publishing program. We crafted a methodology. A process to approach, read and understand any given content through the senses of the specific language of the book, its mechanic, logic and possibilities. Is an understanding of the materiality and economy of our books, but first of all a certain clarity as to what kind of subjects, approach and attitude we are interested in publishing.

A production facility and capacity. Throughout these years we have built an efficient, proven and functional production system that has the ability to bring content to book form with remarkable speed. It is a printing capacity, but before it was a capacity to generate and process editorial content of the highest quality. On average, every year we publish 30 titles and an estimated total of 8,000 copies, a quantity that is not negligible for an infrastructure of that scale.

A network. To make possible the distribution, dissemination, circulation, discussion, and the construction and care of a community around this production we have built a strong and unique network of friendships, collaboration and alliances. Which is local, and international. Which is virtual —a screen, a social network— but very concrete.

By doing so, we can assure that we place our books in places, circumstances and circuits that no other publisher nor in Mexico or Latin America is capable of.

What type of material do you publish?

Over the last six years we have published more than 150 titles, which can be broadly divided into four large sets of genres: conceptual books, photography, essays and poetry. We work with both young and emerging artists and writers as well as with renowned authors.

How do you distribute your work?

Usually our print runs are in the hundreds. The administration of this scale determines the rest of our activities. It establishes the burden, but also the opportunity to go find our reader and witness and participate in that small miracle when a given book —as rare and specific as ours can. The largest distribution channel for our books is direct sales to the public, so we constantly show up at book fairs in Mexico, Latin America, the United States, and Europe. All this work has allowed us to weave a wide network of work and contacts that has allowed us to enrich local discussions around the main work themes of our editorial projects. A tool to enhance, extend, and maintain a network of friendship and collaboration.

How have you addressed the challenges?

Three months later, it is difficult to say. Something clear is that we will continue with this. Somehow this editorial model was systemically-prepared to deal with the crisis, always working on the scale of the possible resources. But the truth is, we don't really know how. It's learning as we go. Will keep you posted.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

Our practice involves a conscious of animism: inhabiting the unique and non-transferable semantics and lyrics of the book. Created on the certainty of the all mighty super powers of the book as tool of criticsm, activism, and memory. At the same time, publishing is a permanent exercise of urgency: to bring contents, ideas, arguments, inquiries, and memory into the book form. Only through this model of publishing would it be possible to exist. A radical practice, to me that means a constant experimentation around the possibilities and limits of language; about name the inexplicable; about a permanent revolve against violence and oblivion.

How and why do you publish?

I still think self-publishing is the key to self-representation. Some of my earliest motivations of starting a publishing imprint came from simply not seeing books in the market that covered the material I wanted to research and what publications did exist typically came from a western or outside perspective. We need more nuance in the publishing world. More voices, more perspectives can only keep it healthy and expand its growth.

What type of material do you publish?

Hardworking Goodlooking the publishing collective I founded with Clara Balaguer and includes artist Czar Kristoff and designer Dante Carlos produces both self-generated and collaborative works. In the beginning it served as a means to publish the research of The Office of Culture and Design and featured projects predominately in The Philippines but has now expanded to include artists working locally in Manila and across the Filipino Diaspora as well as workshops, residencies and pedagogical work HWGL has participated in. We try as much as we can to print in The Philippines or with small printers. We like to use the word Lathalas (loose translation of Publication into Tagalog) because we find the definition of our work lies in between artist book and zine. We also like to use DIWO (Do It With Others) as oppose to DIY when describing our process, which is mindful of the collaborative/collective nature of publishing.

How do you distribute your work?

We distribute our small editions mainly at fairs, because we like the direct interaction with the readership (as well as the direct sales). When we have remaining stock we distribute through stores we feel we have affinity with. We also prioritize selling books to libraries or public collections for those to have access to work despite printing in small quantities and being limited to a smaller distribution network.

What challenges do publishers face today?

Funding is always the issue. I don’t want to keep repeating the mantra “There is no money in books,” but in many ways it’s true. Our motivation and reward are beyond material compensation however and books provide us many other opportunities. We keep the press going by trying to be more crafty with the economic model, slowing down the pace of the production cycle and being more mindful of how we produce editions. No true solution as been found but we are working on it.

How have you addressed the challenges?

see above

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

I have to create a line between my design practice and my publishing practice in order to keep the character and specificity of the publishing practice (also out of respect of HWGL being an equal collective). A lot of clients and studios do not understand what my publishing practice is and I don’t want to water it down for them. I also don’t alway love the design work I do or find it necessary to share it and that is just a fact of running a studio that no one can deny. The separation is liberating, like having a mask or alter-ego.

How and why do you publish?

We participate as book designers, editors, and publishers—frequently working on all of these aspects in tandem through our imprint, Inventory Press. We also design numerous books each year for other publishers and cultural institutions through our design studio, IN-FO.CO (Inventory Form & Content). We first came to design as people very interested in content, seeing that design had become an underutilized tool in the ways that forward-looking thought was being conceptualized and disseminated. Publishing provides us with a setting to put forth underreported subject matter, and do so in a way that incorporates nuanced approaches to both design and content. Even in a vastly expanded media ecosystem, it seems to us that books remain a crucial component of contributing to significant cultural conversations, particularly in the way that the medium lends itself to depth and longevity.

What type of material do you publish?

There have been a range of origin points for books that we’ve published. Some are internally generated ideas, which may have simmered for years before coming together; others arrive from an external source, frequently (though not always) from someone that we’ve known for a while or already collaborated with. Regardless of starting point, the editorial and design process is always a very collaborative one for everyone involved.

We’ve focused on topics that seem significant, but underreported, with an emphasis on filling gaps in history. Our expanded reprint of Blueprint for Counter Education is a good example, as an all-but-forgotten publication seen by very few people since the early 1970s, but which is important both as a uncannily relevant piece of design history that was ahead of (or outside of) its time, and also for its range of still-relevant, far-ranging pedagogical ideas.

One recent book, A New Program for Graphic Design, focuses in part on reframing graphic design as a liberal art. The content for that book was developed by David Reinfurt at Princeton University, where he teaches a unique set of graphic design courses that combine pragmatics with high-level analysis about design. As a way to write the book, David performed a compressed version of three semester courses in three days at our studio in Los Angeles; we then worked and reworked the transcript into the book manuscript and eventual layout, making David’s pedagogical approach available to a much wider audience.

Our most widely known collaborator yet is Jordan Peele. IN-FO.CO collaborated with his studio, Monkeypaw Productions, on a design project, and through that relationship we were able to pitch the idea of publishing a series of paperback books on Jordan’s films. Monkeypaw loved the idea of making an inexpensive book that would offer students and young writers in particular a deeper point of access to their work and the various social and political issues it uncovers. Jordan’s annotated screenplay Get Out just came out this fall, and we’re excited to continue the collaboration next year.

How do you distribute your work?

We sell books directly at book fairs, from our website, and at events that we have a part in organizing. For stores, et cetera, we work closely with our distributor, DAP, both for the United States and internationally.

What challenges do publishers face today?

The economics of publishing are truly difficult to pull off, especially in terms of costs for the kind of books that we do (in terms of production values, quantity, and so on) versus reaching an affordable sales price. More positively, it’s so much easier these days to work in the field in terms of the availability of digital production tools, printers and distributors who understand the relatively small niche that we work in, and the ability to spread the word online.

How have you addressed the challenges?

In terms of economic challenges, we’ve found it very difficult to pay for a given title through sales, so nearly every title that we publish has up-front funding of some sort. Sources might include grants, direct support from a cultural institution, or a partner committing to a substantial pre-purchase of copies. (We’re aware that in some European countries there can be some direct government support for this sort of publishing, but that isn’t the case in the United States.) We end up putting a lot of time into figuring out a workable setup for each title, where we can be confident that costs will be covered and we won’t lose money. We’ve found this approach to be essential to maintaining a sustainable publishing infrastructure, though in the end most sales proceeds go back into the press. So it’s definitely key that we make our living as designers, rather than attempting to do so on the publishing side.

We’re really excited about Danielle Aubert’s upcoming book that she’s both written and designed, and that we’re publishing: The Detroit Printing Co-op: The Politics of the Joy of Printing. It’s inspiring to see how Danielle’s work crosses boundaries between design and activism as well as teaching.

How and why do you publish?

When I was an undergraduate, independent publishing was a trend in the industry, and it has only grown since. After graduating, I interned for a year at the Propaganda Press of GRAPHIC, and learned to publish there. Since then, I wanted to make my own independent publication. While in an MFA course at Basel, Switzerland I came up Typozimmer and produced the first issue — finally taking my first step to become an independent publisher. “Typozimmer” literally means "type room" in German, and it means the "typography classroom" in the Basel School of Design. I would like for my publication to convey both of these meanings.

What type of material do you publish?

I publish somewhere in between, because the material is often a mix of my design and other people’s works. I publish Typozimmer for my own design experiments and to address design needs that cannot be solved by client works. At the same time, another reason why I publish is to circulate other people’s work through images, interviews, and articles. So I am often selecting and contacting participants to collaborate and design with.

How do you distribute your work?

Distribution is very closed. Typozimmer was distributed only to The Book Society up until Issue No. 5 . Currently it is not in circulation anywhere, but only sold in the poster shop Occupy The City. The biggest problem with independent bookstores at the moment is that they are not able to settle their accounts regularly, so it is usually easier to sell them on my own.

What challenges do publishers face today?

People are not reading anymore. Especially in Seoul, most of them don’t read, only watching their smartphones and getting information online. In this situation, we are facing the questioning of physical forms of printed matter. Printed matter will not disappear immediately, however, it may be sooner than we think.

How have you addressed the challenges?

According to The Book by Amaranth Borsuk, the physical form of the book has always been the site of experimentation and play. We should remember its long history of transformation. We are reading differently, not less.

My experiments with the physical form of publications are in two areas. On the one hand, craftsmanship. Using 17 different spot colors including CMYK to make publication more vivid and attractive than a screen is in Typozimmer No. 7 and No. 8. experimenting and pushing the limits of mass printing techniques positions this work somewhere between mass production and craft.

On the other hand, more virtual. One of the main reasons is because of COVID-19 and the quarantine situation. In the context of the transition to non-face-to-face classes, the university's graphic design and typography classes have clear limitations. Therefore, recording and putting online all content is my solution. I started using YouTube as part of that. Physical materials for classes are becoming useless and more virtual.

How does being based in Korea influence your practice?

One of the ways my practice is affected comes from language and production costs. Printing costs are way cheaper here than in North America and Europe with appropriate printing quality.

How would you describe the book and publishing culture in Korea?

I’m not familiar with the whole publishing culture, but my area of interest is the magazine. Once a month, I’ll visit bookstores to see which magazines are surviving in the market. These days, the magazine sector is very active, as it has never been before. This seems like a strategy to catch consumers’ attention. I’ve noticed commercial magazines are experimenting with different print techniques too, such as using holographic stamping or even lenticular printing methods for entire covers.

On the other hand, independent publishing is somewhat monotonous in terms of printing experiments. Most of them print only with risograph, and few publishers are showing some diversity in bookbinding methods. I usually try to pay closer attention to which types of papers others are using.

What are some of the challenges when publishing in multiple languages?

Translation is the most challenging part. The biggest concern is that there should not be any misunderstanding between Korean and other languages. Typography and design are fun, but designing with another language is a challenge to figure out how to put different shapes together — juggling variables like width, length, lines, dots, and letters.

How do the works you publish address a certain need or community in Korea, or maybe even in the world?

My works are extremely personal. Every issue of Typozimmer reflects my interest in graphic design at the moment. The issues are a compilation of my own point of view — certain flows during certain periods of time.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

As mentioned above, the content is not limited to the form of the book. It is assumed that the publication model does not exist as a material property or is left in a different way to be passed on to others(readers). Something imaginary and experimental that is free from physical constraints.

How and why do you publish?

The idea of creating NXS World as a collaborative research project was born out of the need to rethink how we discuss themes centering on human identity, connection, interaction, and emotional effects in their relation to digital technology. We want to capture the current emotional status of our networked society and create a dialogue between us and the readers and well as among our contributors. NXS (which stands for nexus, bond) has grown into a shape-shifting art world of its own, unfolding as a biannual printed publication paralleled by immersive exhibitions, performances, and lectures.

Even though we explore topics that relate to digital technologies, we find it important to use a printed format as it allows for a distance from their original environments and for reflection in a different pace. The way we read and consume information has changed drastically in the last decade. We read texts and watch images on screens, scrolling down endlessly. The distinctive tall format of our publication resembles this long scroll on your phone, an act we have become so accustomed to. Yet it seems a bit “off”: it is slightly disturbing and disruptive in a printed form, which in itself makes people stop and think about it. In addition, it is a momentary capture of the world we live in: a printed archive that cannot be endlessly edited and that lasts, of our digitally mediated emotions, behaviors, perceptions, and social relations in the current age.

What type of material do you publish?

As a collaborative artwork, NXS World uses its own distinctive method for co-creation. Like its name suggests, the platform, or world, unfolds as a constellation of personal viewpoints, experiences, and stories, a myriad of which are underlined—but not bound—by theory. NXS World is a network of selves from various backgrounds and disciplines (media theorists, visual artists, cyber-feminists, graphic designers, modern witches, poets, bloggers, and many others), all participating in an “exquisite corpse” method. For each print issue, contributors generate sincere content by responding to a preceding submission in written words or via visual interpretations. This experimental approach is as accessible as it is deeply emotive: personal stories and experiences of digital sensuality are in open dialogue, building up novel narratives beyond aloof theory and rationality. We apply this method not only in our publication but also, for example, when curating an exhibition or structuring a workshop. Since its foundation in 2017, NXS World has hosted and mediated the works of more than two hundred contributors, including Lil Miquela, Reba Maybury, Vector Newman, Metahaven, Jack Self, Armen Avanessian, Pinar & Viola, Jonathan Castro, and James Massiah.

The design of the publication is done by us, or more specifically by our graphic design studio, Goys&Birls. We see this as the moment were we bring ourselves in the chain of responses, so to speak. The layout and visual components are directly responding to the content of the publication, reflecting its tone of voice and adding an emotionally triggering layer. The design is very strong and loud. It adapts the aesthetics of digital culture, but lets the content underneath speak of it and addressing its underbelly, thereby being self-critical and responsive.

What challenges do publishers face today?

As aggregators and other media platforms have been changing our consumption of visual and textual information—we get used to fast, quickly changing, and diverse streams of content—we feel that this has immensely influenced the ways in which printed media like ours gets processed. People are searching for short snippets of information, clicking through content, skipping that what doesn’t trigger immediate interest. A printed publication is not necessarily something that addresses a large or mainstream audience nowadays. Furthermore, is it a challenge to publish independently. All the money we make from the sales we put back into the production. It is time-consuming, and therefore it needs to be done out of passion, not out of economic interest.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

Because NXS World is an independent project, it serves as our playground for experiment, network foundation, and content creation, but also for as our free space for creative production ourselves, like developing cutting-edge visuals that are eventually promoting and stabilizing the profile of our design studio Goys&Birls.

How and why do you publish?

Recently I established a small software company that collaborates with artists and designers to publish unique software products. These are sold through a website and also, even more strangely, through a walk-in one-day-a-week software shop as individual shrink-wrapped cards with unique download codes printed as holographic stickers. I realize it is radically out of date to sell shrink-wrapped software, and really this whole project is as much of a taunt or prod to get others to think more critically about the screens and software we willingly give so much of our time and attention to.

I publish as and when I want to see something in the world. It is not overly complicated, and very often motivated by an invitation or situation or collaboration.

Here is a good background of o-r-g: o-r-g.com*

And of course the website is o-r-g.com

Here is a “typical” product o-r-g.com/screensavers/spiral-induction

Here are some pictures from the shop: instagram.com/or_g instagram.com/p/BrDlbHLlND3/ instagram.com/p/BrI7e0ghtym/

And here are many of the softwares as installed collected ad hoc from users: are.na/david-reinfurt/o-r-g-softwares

This one is someone else’s (Karel M): o-r-g.com/screensavers/three-times-in-blue-and-yellow

And this one is somewhere in between (Bruno Munari as reincarnated by me): o-r-g.com/screensavers/tetracono

How do you distribute your work?

Both online and in the one-day-a-week shop as well as occasional book fairs and other vendors like: kioskkiosk.com/collections/ongoing/products/tetracono-screensaver-by-o-r-g left.gallery/tetracono

What challenges do publishers face today?

Articulating a clear frame or point of view when so much is driven by brute-force web search.

How have you addressed the challenges?

We also have events and launches in the physical space. For example, this is video from the launch we did with Tauba Auerbach for her screen saver: vimeo.com/267130991

Here is a description of the saver: o-r-g.com/screensavers/spiral-induction

And the event: o-r-g.com/screensavers/spiral-induction/spiral-induction-launch

And a list of other events at the o-r-g small software shop: o-r-g.com/shop

There will be two events already in September when the shop reopens for fall and then just continue rolling on.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

No.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

Well, I am biased of course. At the moment I’m most interested in addressing software. My approach itself is radically out of date, but points in the direction of where I would like things to go. Or at least I hope it provokes some thinking about where things should go driven by the experience of using a computer rather than only by its brutal utility.

How and why do you publish?

In 2016 I officially entered the world of publishing, which was also when I was studying for my master’s degree in design and started working as a graphic designer. I became interested in the book format, and it was a pleasure to design around the various physical structures of books. I really enjoyed making a book together with clients, but sometimes I faced limitations while trying to do something bold. I came to realize that if I could publish books on my own, I could create the type of book I wanted. That was the beginning.

What type of material do you publish?

I create content of my own, and I also publish other people’s work. I had collected photos of safety cones in landscapes from many different countries in my travels since 2014, and later gathered them into the photo book RC. Based on the photos in RC, I created new images responding to elements of each picture with interfaces that function as temporary guides in the working environment of graphic editing software. These images were then published as a book titled RC 2, which I paired up with the first one as a set. These were my first two self-initiated projects.

Recently I organized an exhibition and program platform called Open Recent Graphic Design as a venue for discourse on graphic design. And I have been curating exhibitions with several designers every year. Records on curation, exhibitions, and designers have been all documented and published since its launch.

I also publish the work of others. PRESS ROOM has a series of publications under the title AB, which introduces artists and works in the visual arts scene. Three books have been published so far: Kyoungtae Kim’s photo book Angles (2016), Sookyung Lee’s Gloss Lamination Sewing Binding (2017), and Heecheon Kim’s Rigging (2017).

How do you distribute your work?

I announce the news via SNS, distribute the books to bookstores, and participate in book fairs.

What challenges do publishers face today?

I’ve heard that many people nowadays don’t look for paper books as much as before, with the evolution of the internet and storage media.

How have you addressed the challenges?

I personally do not think that content stored as data is safe as a medium for perpetuity. The data must have a program that interprets it, and the user needs a device for opening the file. Paper books are often considered an inefficient recording medium because of their volume and weight, but they are better than worrying about the continued existence of computer data.

In any case, books published by PRESS ROOM have a certain number of target customers, and only a small number of copies are produced, so I cannot relate to the situation that the larger publishing industry is facing. Two new books this year were printed in the same quantities I always have.

How does being based in Korea influence your practice?

It’s difficult to define what Korean modern design is, since there is not a clear established identity of Korean design. At the same time, this becomes an advantage for designers to experiment and try a variety of visual styles. Also, as visual content is generated and consumed rapidly, I’m constantly striving to learn new tools and methods to create images to flexibly address this process.

How would you describe the book and publishing culture in Korea?

The way people consume books is changing due to technology. It seems that many people don’t feel that they need physical books. Publishers continue to produce new books, but offline bookstores are disappearing and book sales are declining. This trend has also led publishers to sell books independently, requiring them to learn about public relations to reach individuals.

What are some of the challenges when publishing in multiple languages?

One of the biggest challenges is the cost of translating Korean into English.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

PRESS ROOM is both a graphic design and a publishing studio. The tasks are similar, but I have different roles in each activity. Thus, I feel the need to distinguish them. In the case of SNS channels, accounts for publication and design activities are separated. This is because each account has a different type of posting. To the publishing account, I post information about publishing, distribution, and events related to publishing. To my studio account, I publish my work, events, and portfolio as a designer. I thought it would be confusing to post all different content on one account. I separate my practices into different accounts for the matter of functionality, but this does not necessarily mean that my roles as a publisher and as a designer are separate, nor that they should be.

How and why do you publish?

I’ve produced and published one or two books a year since 2013 in a series called Side Issues. I have always been curious about looking at things in unexpected ways. This drove me to find in publishing a space for research, experimentation, and creation, alongside my practice as a graphic designer and teacher. I had the aspiration to be in control of what I wanted to do, create my own tasks, set a framework to decide everything myself, from design to means of production. At a social and relational level, publishing gives me opportunities to collaborate directly with artists, graphic designers, photographers, creative people—to set up book projects according to our own mutual motivations. This approach enables projects to emerge that otherwise wouldn’t.

What type of material do you publish?

I started publishing my own work in a first book, and since then I show other people’s work—designers, artists.

How do you distribute your work?

Mainly online, one or two book fairs a year, and in selected bookstores.

What challenges do publishers face today?

For me, working as I do on an issue-by-issue basis without a long-term marketing plan, the main challenge is finding a way to secure the money needed to create the next book. I have to search for financial support in the early stages before the book exists, while making sure that it will not restrict my creative freedom so I can really make the book I want.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

As my imprint project is partly a reaction to the frustration of not finding so much creative freedom as a designer, I have set up an uncomplicated, more intuitive approach to projects in publishing. Side Issues allows me to make each new project have its own dynamic by letting time take its course. Once a book project is initiated, I always enjoy letting an idea progress through the collaboration with the person(s) involved. The biggest benefit of publishing for me is that I can take decisions only when they are meaningful, don’t have to spend my energy on building consensus and can be under pressure when I decide. Publishing activity requires eventually a different type of promotion, reflecting my work as a direct result of my own sensibility rather than as my capacity to react to external demand. Side Issues gives me therefore a direct sense of accomplishment as an active participant in the field of communication.

How and why do you publish?

Sometimes I wonder if I actually participate in any world of publishing! My practice has evolved by moving further and further away from mainstream publishing, which prioritizes exposure, reach, and profit. A while back I started using Annette Gilbert’s term “publishing as artistic practice,” which she defines as work that explores questions of authorship, agency, and circulation through artist-controlled production and distribution. I definitely identify with this kind of practice and still consider her definition accurate, but I would now add collaboration and community to the mix as well. I try to model a practice of care in my studio by building respectful relationships through the making of the work, and this is becoming more and more my priority.

What type of material do you publish?

I used to only publish self-generated work, but now my publishing projects are almost totally collaborative. With both Library of the Printed Web and even more so now with QUEER.ARCHIVE.WORK I try to use the space of the publication as a way to assemble artists and writers and to let their words and images and ideas intermingle freely. Lately this has impacted my design decisions and how I give form to the publication in a way that encourages this idea of a “loose assemblage.” It’s more about building a platform and using it to amplify other voices, especially those who have been traditionally left out or erased from archives.

I’m finding that this is a good way to grow—for me, as an artist-publisher, being exposed to new work and constantly being surprised in the process—and hopefully for everyone else too, seeing their work in new contexts.

How do you distribute your work?

My work gets distributed mainly at art book fairs. I used to have a fairly robust online business, too, but order fulfillment and shipping is too much work for one person! So now I focus all of my energy on a few fairs a year, like Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair and some smaller fairs, too. Recently I was in the NY Tech Zine Fair at the School for Poetic Computation in New York and that was so special, with workshops and a very carefully considered selection of artist-run tables that prioritized face-to-face conversation and community. I’m a big believer in the power of connecting with an artist directly across their table, and being able to meet and engage personally with everyone who purchases your work. I’d rather have this with a smaller audience than anything else! At the Printed Matter fair I also get visited by librarians and archivists who are placing my work in special collections and reading rooms at schools and museums and other institutions, and I’m always grateful for that; it means that the work will be cared for and accessible. Beyond that, my audience tends to be students and other artists who are on the lookout for nonnormative, challenging material.

What challenges do publishers face today?

I think that publishing’s biggest challenge today is around the question of value. We’re so saturated with information and surrounded by the nonstop, ubiquitous output of publishing, from mainstream media to social media to all of the algorithmic feeds that now occupy our attention. When deciding what to broadcast or post or publish, the fundamental question of value needs to be asked: Is this material relevant, useful, needed? To whom? Am I providing value by reproducing this material, circulating it, reposting it, or otherwise making it accessible? Does the labor required to accomplish this justify the value it could potentially provide? I ask myself these questions every day in my practice. Coming to terms with this in my work includes several risks—that I might be focused on the wrong material, or missing my audience, or somehow not generating enough additional value by choosing to publish someone’s images or words. When the focus of a practice is less on financial profit and more about generating cultural, emotional, and/or communal value, these questions become even more crucial. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is the reason I publish independently in a small, slower, and hopefully more considered way.

How have you addressed the challenges?

My practice shifted a few years ago when I started to teach. I’m in contact with young people who are just beginning to make work and find their voices, and I see how important it is to model a practice of care and value for them. As an educator, I work in a very privileged place, where students are presented with a lot of options and a sense of incredible possibility. But exploitation and inequity is easily found in almost any industry they might enter. I believe that the greatest impact I can have as an educator is to create space in my teaching for making meaning, finding an authentic voice, and building trust and communal care in the spaces and people around you. This kind of a practice is starting to feel more and more radical and uncommon, unfortunately.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

I think that any publishing practice that is nonexploitative, fair, and caring in the relationships it enables is progressive, and possibly radical. Working outside of normative, commercial publishing practices means that there is space to experiment with these ideas, without the demands and burdens of financial profit. For some, this might mean maintaining a very small zine-making practice.

For others it may mean working inside powerful institutions but creating access for others through that privilege. It also means making space for underrepresented and historically marginalized voices who traditionally have been left out of these spaces, and working hard to decenter whiteness and bias and other privileges. I think that any publishing activity that interferes with normative narratives by pushing back against and working to dismantle what Patricia Hill Collins defined as the “matrix of domination” (heteronormativity, capitalism, white supremacy, and settler colonialism) is radical, crucial, and valuable.

How and why do you publish?

Perhaps for a usual reason: we wanted to make certain books as designers, but couldn’t find publishers who would do it for us. Or maybe we were just impatient. And we also had concrete models, such as Hyphen Press in London or Roma Publications in Amsterdam, so we knew graphic designers could publish. And at the time we were starting publishing, 2006, we were just starting everything else, too, and we were eager to pursue whatever we could do as designers. It’s possible that we wanted to prove that we could make better books—in terms not only of design but also of content and editing—than anybody else in Korea. Maybe we were just competitive. But we did have certain books that we wanted to make.

What type of material do you publish?

Some of the titles are authored or created by us, but mostly they’re other people’s. There are books that we jointly publish with Workroom Press, which are more text-based and made for wider readership. And there have been some Specter Press–exclusive works by ourselves and our artist friends, such as Sasa[44], MeeNa Park, Min Oh, and Hwayeon Nam. These are either monographs or artist’s books. But we are increasingly merging our work with Workroom Press, and the distinction is becoming less and less clear.

How do you distribute your work?

Again, we rely on Workroom Press for the marketing and distribution, and they, in turn, work with major book distributors who supply books to all the major bookstores in Korea. We also go to book fairs, and we have some specialized bookshops in Seoul that sell our books, too. All of the bookstores, specialized or not, have online shops.

How have you addressed the challenges?

We seek help. That’s also one of the reasons why we increasingly work with Workroom Press, because they are committed professionals and they know how to do things properly.

How does being based in Korea influence your practice?

It has been essential for us to be based in Korea. First of all, our language is very important in our work. The simple fact of working with Korean language has made a big difference. Although it’s not always visible, we spend a lot of time shaping words as well as pictures. With Korean as our mother tongue, we have more command in that aspect of the work.

Secondly, both of us teach here which has provided an opportunity to stay connected to what’s happening in this country, especially among younger people. We don’t necessarily try to be “trendy”, but we’re actually quite wary of being influenced by our student’s work as much as we are of directly influencing them — but it’s always great to have an ongoing conversation with young designers, as it helps you critically examine your own dogmas.

In terms of design, there has been an interesting conversation between mainstream book publishers, “independent” art-book-focused designers, and designers outside the traditional publishing sector who are not necessarily book designers. So nowadays you can find books in major bookstores that look like the ones you expect to see at art book fairs. Books published by Dolbegae or Mati are particularly impressive for their daring design, largely thanks to the work of Kim Dongshin of the former and Oh Senal of the latter. We don’t know if it’s just a fad or if it suggests a longer, more organic relationship, but it’s interesting that the boundary between conventional design and the so-called “independent” graphic design is becoming increasingly blurred in publishing.

What are some of the challenges when publishing in multiple languages? (Design, typographic, linguistic)

Korean typography is different on some fundamental levels from Latin typography, so working with both scripts can be challenging, but we have developed certain methods and workarounds. For example, on a purely formal level, you can’t expect to achieve the same kind of “grayness” or evenness in texture, because this has never been an issue in Korean typography. The tools (typefaces) and the principles are just not built on that premise. Also, the sense of alignment is different, as the Korean alphabet doesn’t have a clear baseline and we need to work more with areas than with lines. Linguistically, of course being able to understand your material is important, but again, there are workarounds including translators and, more importantly, your collaborators. At the same time, reading the text word by word is not the case even with your own mother tongue. It’s more about scanning the text and performing a kind of pattern recognition, and that can be done with a language that you don’t know.

How do the works you publish address a certain need or community in Korea, or maybe even in the world?

We rarely think about any “community” when we publish books. We think a book’s raison d’être should be found by, literally, its existence, not by its reception. A book creates its own temporary community by being in the world by being accessible to and eventually used by certain people. It’s not like the book is made explicitly for an existing community.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

In terms of management, maybe we should have, but haven’t been able to do so more clearly. Things tended to get muddled a bit. In terms of design approach, we try not to distinguish them. We try to be equally adventurous and cautious about commissioned design projects, our own publications, and our teaching exercises. We don’t believe in doing something in compensation for the others.

How and why do you publish?

A significant motivation for founding the publishing imprint ‘split/fountain’ in 2009, was the possibility for creative autonomy, critical engagement and collaboration. split/fountain publishing enables us to bring community together and provide a platform for voices outside the mainstream. An independent publishing imprint also offeres a way to assume creative agency and take control both intellectually and economically, of the means of production.¹

split/fountain is a publishing imprint but also operates variously as a design studio, project space, curatorial office, online bookshop, and laboratory for urban aesthetics and collaborative thinking. Publishing is a significant part of the programme and plays a central role in communication and engagement with a broader community, both in Aotearoa² (New Zealand) and internationally. I co-founded the project shortly after returning to Tāmaki Makaurau,³ Aotearoa to live after eight years overseas. I studied graphic design in the Netherlands at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Werkplaats Typografie and completed a design fellowship at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis USA. Publishing through split/fountain has enabled me to continue to participate in an international design and publishing community, engage with contacts I made while overseas, but also importantly, create local community and opportunities for collaboration with artists, writers and other designers.

What type of material do you publish?

Publishing projects take a range of forms including publications, posters, newspapers, artists’ editions etc., that are all connected to the broader split/fountain programme and focus on cross-disciplinary practices operating at the point of intersection between art and design. split/fountain exhibitions projects often include a publication document as integral to the project, and these aim to present material in such a way that it becomes a parallel project. Design is both content and context (the medium in the message⁴ and the message is the form). In some instances, documents are produced collaboratively to create connections between people, or ‘performed’ through the production of a publication at a specific site. Here, the circumstances and processes surrounding production have significance, including the methods for making something public. We also present nomadic exhibitions both in Aotearoa and overseas⁵ that use transience as a methodology for generating change and new ways of thinking, these enable us to reach diverse audiences and participate in a broader cultural dialogue.

distracted-reader,⁶ a publication that I co-edit with writer and lecturer Allan Smith, has a changing format to best suit the material being presented. Issue #3: Time to Think Like a Mountain (2018), combines magazine fragments, archival images, interviews, collages and newly commissioned texts, documenting artist Louise Menzies’ distracted meanderings through one of the largest collections of underground and self-published material in the United States, The Alternative Press Collection at the University of Connecticut. distracted-reader does thinking as making, and print design as speculative thought. This approach allows us to promote the idea of reading as a form of collaboration, and encourage artists and designers to break down the boundaries that exist around the theories, practices, and philosophies of art, design, and architecture. More recently, we are exploring digital publishing methods and plan to publish the next issue of distracted-reader online.

When we have funding support for publication projects, we generally hold budget aside to send complimentary copies to local reading rooms, galleries, libraries and schools. Idea Books (Amsterdam) distribute split/fountain publishing in Europe and the USA. We also participate in international book fairs such as the LA Art Book Fair and the New York Art Book Fair, Vancouver Art/Book Fair, and Tokyo Art Book Fair, and take part in local and international exhibitions. For example, split/fountain presented a project for an edition of the International Biennial of Graphic Design in Brno, where we presented a reading room and offered a free newspaper. We view these projects as an essential form of distribution. Obviously, the current pandemic and closure of the New Zealand border mean participating in international exhibitions and book fairs is no longer possible in person.

In 2018, The University of Auckland announced the closure of its specialist Fines Arts, Architecture, Music and Dance libraries (amidst significant opposition from the extended visual arts community). Other universities in Aotearoa have discontinued or radically reduced the budget for the purchase of physical books and now prioritise spending on digital resources, online journals, and so forth. Being an island nation in the south-western Pacific Ocean, international distribution of printed matter is very difficult due to the extremely high cost of shipping abroad. Our geographic isolation also means that the promotion of titles can be challenging too, especially if we are working with young or emerging practitioners who may not yet have an International reputation outside of Aotearoa.

How have you addressed the challenges?

Increasingly, I address these challenges by encompassing the possibilities that new technologies offer for exhibiting and circulating knowledge and information online, for compiling, activating and interactively organising content. The notions of flexibility and agility certainly motivate split/fountain; I see this as enabling discussion across disciplines, and the ability to connect but also to disconnect in various scenarios.

I am currently working with a significant body of knowledge of national significance: the drawings, photographs, unrealised projects, negatives, workbooks, research, and ephemera of Aotearoa artist Paul Cullen (1949–2017), produced and accumulated by him over more than forty years. I am simultaneously cataloguing and creating a digital database and archive while working with this material to create a series of interpretative publishing projects. These consider the challenges that new technology presents to printed matter and the physical book, the relationships between physical form, documentation and digital reproduction. Questions that I am currently considering include: How might a design-led process activate the archive to facilitate engagement, new trajectories and the archive's continuous emergence? How might the archive reflect the artist-subject incumbent in the archive?

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

When I work with clients, I am generally engaged in a specific role, for example, to design a catalogue for an exhibition that has a curatorial concept and predetermined content. In split/fountain publishing projects, I am a creative contributor and operate across an expanded definition of graphic design, I am involved in the entire process of making a book (or exhibition). This includes concept development, the initiation or the production of content, editing, design and production (this might be physically printing, coding, or just overseeing the production process at a commercial printer), right through to distribution. For this reason, I consider publishing to be a process or a practice,⁷ rather than simply, the contents are published.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

Nicholas Thoburn’s concept of the anti-book⁸ interests me because it proposes a critical interrogation of the relationship between media form and textual content. This is an idea that I work with in the split/fountain series distracted-reader. Anti-books, according to Thoburn, “test, problematise, and push to the limits their full materiality”.⁹ This includes physical properties, graphic styles, sensory qualities, linguistic structures, technological affordances, institutional structures, and publishing paradigms.¹⁰ In terms of radical publishing practices, this has always seemed to me like an excellent place to start.

1. Lupton, Ellen. (2012).“The Designer as Producer” in Graphic Design Now in Production, Walker Art Center.
2. Aotearoa is the Māori name for New Zealand.
3. Tāmaki Makaurau is the Māori name for ‘Auckland’ which is the capital city of New Zealand (Aotearoa).
4. A term coined by Marshall McLuhan in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, The MIT Press, 1994.
5. Nomadic split/fountain exhibition projects presented overseas include Temporary housing + shelter at the Tokyo Art Book Fair (produced in collaboration with Whatever Press Tokyo), S/F project at the Physics Room in Christchurch, and distracted-workshop, at the 26th International Biennial of Graphic Design Brno in the Czech Republic, and an exhibition of split/fountain publishing at C7C Gallery in Nagoya Japan.
6. [https://bit.ly/2NBWThV](https://bit.ly/2NBWThV)
7. Gilbert, Annette. (2016). Publishing as Artistic Practice, Sternberg Press.
8. Thoburn, Nicholas. (2016). Anti-Book: On the Art and Politics of Radical Publishing, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
9. Ibid., 1-2.
10. Ibid., 1-2.

How and why do you publish?

I’ve liked books since I was young. For my design clients I make posters, brand identities, editorial design, album artwork, and package design. Personally, I enjoy the process of making a book from the beginning to the end (ideation, planning, editing, and design). I am especially interested in and curious about publications with fun ideas even if they’re not started from some important information. I wanted to make books I like, so I jumped into the publication world as a designer and a self-publisher, SUPERSALADSTUFF. My first self-published book, Books in Animation, was released at Seoul Art Book Fair, UE9 (Unlimited Edition 9). I publish more than one printed project per year.

What type of material do you publish?

For now, I only have self-generated things. Some were collaborations, but I planned and designed them myself. I wish I could work with others in different ways; perhaps some nice plan by others that would be suitable for SUPERSALADSTUFF conception. I have published the following books:

Books in Animation (Paperback, Offset Print, 2017) is an archive book to match the real books and books in 2D, 3D, and stop-motion animation that characters read. There are images of the book and the animations in the first part, and detailed explanations in the second part. This project started from my hobby where I was categorizing these books in a certain order because I found a visual similarity between them.

I didn’t expect my first book to become very popular. But everyone laughs when they read this book. This book is mentioned in magazines the most, too.

KNOT (Folded Leaves, Three-color Riso Print, 2017-2019) is a manual with instructions and illustrations guiding how to make eighteen different basic knots. It illustrates methods using ropes, S-shaped hooks, timber and poles. The idea started from a knot with a key illustrated at the back of this book. It was created from my friend’s experiment to mix up various knots. When I saw that she forgot how to make them again, I decided to make a useful yet beautiful manual.

City Pop Places in Seoul (A3 Folded Flyer, KOR/ENG, JAP/ENG, 2018) began in early 2018, when I talked about city pop and the places where we can listen to it with people on SNS. It was fun to share each other’s places, so I made a free paper to share those details for people to enjoy together. This map has two parts. I put a short introduction with the addresses in the front and the map in the back, so people can find where the shops are located. There are some interviews with city pop DJs, record shop owners, online city pop experts, and concert planners who run music labels. We cannot put all the places in the limited page, so we categorize three sections where people can enjoy a city pop vibe in Seoul. The funny thing is, city pop was popular in Japan some time ago, but we made a map where people can enjoy this music in Seoul. It is finally distributed not only in Seoul but also in Tokyo.

SUPERSALADSTUFF AND PENPALS 1, 2 (Paperback, Digital Print, 2018) started with animation artist Shishi Yamazaki and graphic designer Keyboy. Both of them saw the city pop map in Japan and contacted me. When I was traveling in Japan, I met them in person. Then we started to communicate via postcards. Shashi sent me postcards with hand drawings, and I answered back with digital drawings to her.

We exchanged seventy-five postcards per person. I was thinking to make the collection as an animation and book. The book is like a big flipbook, one page is one animation frame. Keyboy is a designer and a writer. I also like to write, especially about my dreams. Sometimes I dream of strange stuff, and I record it in text when I wake up. Keyboy studies Korean and I study Japanese. I write about my dreams in Japanese, then Keyboy reads my message and makes a new story in Korean. Since we are not fluent in each other’s languages, we make some mistakes like choosing the wrong words. It actually makes for interesting and unexpected confusion.

CANDLES/pieces (Open Binding, Offset Print, 2019 / Staple Binding, Offset Print, 2019) is a book about unpredictable shapes from melting candles. I feel like there is a new nature when I watch the shape of candle wax drippings. I got many candles and watched candlelight every day. One candle per day, in the same place. I shot it all myself and tried to capture the most beautiful moment of candlelights. Even though each candle has a different color, I printed in black and white to show the shape clearly. It’s like an observation report for candles.

How do you distribute your work?

Normally I’ll release a new book at art book fairs in Korea or in other countries. Then I sell my books in small bookstores. If those small bookstores have online stores, my books are there too. Currently some of my books are on sale at bookstores in Korea, Japan, and the United States. It would be nice to develop my own website so more people around the world can get to know SUPERSALADSTUFF books. In the case of the free papers, I asked a favor for the places related to the project and then distributed them to people for free.

What challenges do publishers face today?

SUPERSALADSTUFF started from my desire to make different types of publications. Until 2018, SUPERSALADSTUFF published an archive book, a map with interviews and simple information, and a big-format flipbook to show the completed frame made by postcard exchange with an animation artist for six months. In 2019 I wanted to communicate using photos. Also I considered letting more people read my books in another language besides Korean. I want to try to publish in new formats. That might be periodical publications or something on the border between a book and not a book.

How does being based in Korea influence your practice?

Since a few years ago, I’ve felt that Korea’s culture, art, and design scenes have been dramatically shifting. It’s not always changing in positive ways, but creatives are making efforts that do eventually influence and drive improvement. Being surrounded by this type of environment encourages me and gives me the room to think through many different ideas.

How would you describe the book and publishing culture in Korea?

It’s hard to say. Of course, novels, self-improvement books, and magazines with K-pop idols are quite popular in big bookstores. But in independent bookstores, a range of books get attention: books about artists or illustrators, art books by photographers or designers, reviews of art or music, books about social issues, and so on. This variation is why independent publications are so attractive to me. There’s the phenomena where books start as independent publications and gain traction to the point where major publishers pick them up. Basically, a small market of people buy books, but they seem to read a lot of books. I hope more people will be familiar with books first.

What are some of the challenges when publishing in multiple languages?

I do not understand foreign languages as well as a native speaker. However, I try my best to make good decisions because I hope to express the similar appearance when many different languages gather together. I sometimes work with a translator for other languages. In this process, I take enough time with a translator to tune up the tone and accent as similar as possible with my Korean.

How do the works you publish address a certain need or community in Korea, or maybe even in the world?

As I mentioned before, all books from SUPERSALADSTUFF come from my personal interests. I categorize or recombine images or objects that one encounters. Sometimes I try to find an intersecting point in the world from another person’s point of view. SUPERSALADSTUFF’s publications do not necessarily reflect contemporary trends, but rather organizes objects and images in a very personal manner.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

SUPERSALADSTUFF makes at least one publication per year, and all the books have different concepts. I publish books I am interested in, rather than having a big ambition. Also, I try to reflect the book contents in my design. Another element I always try to have as a designer and a publisher are small details. I want readers to have fun finding a little puzzle or a trick I hide in my project.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

If a publisher works as a filter between authors and customers, as in the case of SUPERSALADSTUFF, I am the author, a customer, and a filter. To be honest, I, SUPERSALAD, keep making books that I want to make. I do customized designs for my clients. Sometimes I put all my taste in the design because I have perfect trust in myself as a designer. And I’ve gotten the most positive reaction for the project that I fully relied on my eyes for the design. SUPERSALADSTUFF operates properly in this way, I think. From this idea, I would say SUPERSALADSTUFF could be a radical publisher. I haven’t taken any alternative methods in the business model yet. Still considering.

How and why do you publish?

Typographica was born in 2002 as a chatty blog for typophiles, but within a few years it shifted to its current form as a vessel for “Our Favorite Typefaces”, an annual review of new fonts. The goal is simple: shed light on the most interesting work in type design, a field which is constantly growing. We hope to make life a little easier for graphic designers — and everyone who uses type (which is nearly everyone these days) — helping them navigate the overwhelming choices and giving them some insight into how type is made and what makes good type good.

What type of material do you publish?

For each annual, around 50 contributors each select their “favorite” release of the year. The writers range from type designers to typographers (type users), design critics to educators. Each contributor has their own criteria for their selection, but usually it comes down to a typeface that excites them enough to write something about it. This means our list skews toward type that is innovative and original, not necessarily commercially successful. There is also a healthy range of perspectives that come from a contributor list of various backgrounds.

How do you distribute your work? What challenges do publishers face today?

Like any publisher, online publishers are increasingly competing with social media for readers’ attention. Ironically, while we do that many of us feel obliged to publish content in social media because that’s where most of the readers are — thus compounding the damage. This is especially a problem with Instagram, a beast that wants its users to never leave the platform. And it has essentially succeeded. By limiting the ways you can link to external sites, Instagram users grow more and more accustomed to expecting all content to live within Instagram, effectively creating a closed corner of the internet. Long gone are the days of independent blogs where publishers had complete control of their content.

How have you addressed the challenges?

Well, it may be a losing battle, but I haven’t given up. Typographica does not publish on Instagram anymore. We tried last year and got so few visits from the platform that I refuse to feed that beast. So how do readers hear about new content? We continue to link to typeface reviews from Twitter, WordPress users can subscribe, and most importantly, we still have an RSS feed!

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

Interesting question. I write and edit newsletters and blog posts at my day job, Letterform Archive, and I regularly submit entries to Fonts In Use, so I guess almost everything I do relates to publishing in some way.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

In terms of online publishing, perhaps what we’re doing — abandoning the most popular ways to spread content — is radical. You could also call it dumb. But I think sacrificing your vision and voice to Facebook, Inc. is dumber. I’d love to see publishers take the same plunge and rediscover the freedom of publishing only to the open web, where they can control the way their articles look and how they’re delivered. I’d love to see readers get back to the simple beauty of RSS, where they can control their own reading experience and are untethered by algorithms and square images.

How and why do you publish?

A big part of why I am a designer is that I love learning. It’s a privilege to be able to work with brilliant writers and thinkers and help them package, clarify, illustrate, upend, elaborate, amplify, and generally think through their ideas. Being able to engage with the editorial process, bringing these thinkers together in unexpected ways, crafting the structure and look and feel of their works is extremely satisfying. Working with these ideas so intimately engenders self-critique as well. Realizing what I don’t know and understanding what I misunderstand is the best kind of learning.

I’ve had a limited experience with self-publishing in the past—which I deeply enjoyed—but my primary way of interfacing with the world of publishing is through our efforts here at the Walker Art Center. The Walker is a multidisciplinary art center that presents exhibitions, performance, film, lectures, and a whole range of other types of engagements, and as a significant site for cultural production we are constantly looking for ways to push our ideas and the voices of our artists out into the world. Publishing is a way for us to present an artist’s thinking; it can be a way to contextualize what we are doing; it can frequently be a means of amplifying a project to new audiences. It can take the form of print catalogues, digital blogs, social media, and experimental initiatives like product design and in-person events. It’s so fundamental a practice that I can’t imagine an arts institution without it.

The Walker has a deep history of publishing across all artistic disciplines, but one specific example I’d call attention to is the journal Everyday Art Quarterly, which later became and was better known as Design Quarterly. This was a groundbreaking design magazine that was edited in-house by the Walker’s then design curator for several decades. It ran parallel to many of our design-oriented exhibitions, but also branched out and explored design thinking in a wide range of areas. I call attention to this publication in particular because in addition to our design exhibitions/events and our in-house design studio, Design Quarterly defines the Walker’s design legacy in a big way. We do not have a design collection at the Walker, but instead we both practice and publish design. Whereas another institution might support the design field through acquisition and conservation, we engage through activation and amplification. That’s a really simple way of thinking about it, but it helps me understand our world, and it helps clarify what the Walker design program is.

In the same way that the gallery, the stage, and the cinema are sites of artistic expression for the institution, the book page and the digital space are as well.

What type of material do you publish?

Historically our primary publishing has been in the form of exhibition catalogues, with a few non-visual-arts-related publications mixed in. These are large projects that allow us the opportunity to dive deeply into the work of individual artists, the thinking of our curators, and thematic and historical constructs. They are also where we are able to most elegantly and thoughtfully bring together the Walker’s editorial, curatorial, and design expertise. In addition to experimenting with the materials and visual appearance of the catalogues, we are also able to fundamentally ask what the books want to be, and experiment with the typical form of an exhibition catalogue.

Since 2011 we’ve turned our attention toward digital publishing as well, and toward the challenge of creating a hybrid print and digital publishing ecosystem. In 2005 the Walker created a suite of blogs that were designed to highlight the thinking behind our main artistic programming areas and present the Walker through a diverse (and somewhat chaotic) set of voices, instead of only through one institutional voice. These lived for years on their own before we underwent a radical website redesign that imagined our digital presence through the lens of digital content instead of primarily through the lens of marketing our physical programs. This was a paradigm shift that we are honestly still coming to grips with, which basically posits that our virtual audiences are just as important as our physical audiences, and the Walker can in fact fulfill its mission with people who will never visit our physical space.

Of course, this idea has been around for decades, and our physical catalogues obviously engage readers around the world who might never visit the Walker, but by redesigning our website to highlight our digital publishing efforts, we were presenting a new direction for the institution. The 2011 redesign presented our home page as a digital magazine of sorts, pulling together content from our preexisting blogs, adding a digital editor into the mix who was also commissioning original writing and guiding the entire enterprise, and also linking out into the world, showing our audiences stories from other sites and institutions that we thought they should see. By linking out to other sites, and directing people away from our site, we are attempting to act as an online cultural arbiter, providing a filter for people to access more publishing that is out there even outside the Walker.

In 2011 we also hired our online editor, Paul Schmelzer. Besides overseeing the verticals and managing them under the umbrella of the Walker Reader, Paul is on a mission to explore contemporary art’s relevance to daily life and brings an incredibly poignant and political sensibility to what he does. Some of the projects he’s created since he’s been here include Artist Op-Eds, a series of opinion pieces that suggest artists should be contributing to large cultural conversations in potent ways; Soundboard, a series that invites multiple writers to investigate the same question, with very different perspectives; Superscript, a conference and publishing stream about digital arts journalism; and a variety of smaller content streams investigating vital conversations. When we were conceptualizing the Walker’s new digital publishing ecosystem, Paul immediately jumped to mind as someone incredibly suited to this job. He’s basically a one-person department and is constantly juggling the wild and woolly world of Walker programming, channeling it all into publishing.

Besides typical online articles, we have a number of other formats that we publish through. We understand other media such as video as a part of our larger publishing world. We have also created large-scale digital publications, such as a series of ongoing volumes of research into our collection, which allow us to experiment with long-form reading and more e-book-oriented packaging scenarios. We also create bite-size publishing projects such as annotated and media-rich slide shows. We are constantly using new projects as a way to expand our capabilities in digital publishing, with the ultimate goal of bringing the same level of refinement and experimentation that exists in our print publishing to our digital efforts. We also try to invest our digital publishing with a high level of design, from small “question cards” that are basically graphic ads for individual articles, to unique graphic identities for themed content series, to a new era of “feature stories” that receive highly designed layouts.

Some of the most interesting projects we have worked on with Paul are acts of institutional self-critique. The very first Soundboard Paul commissioned was around the question of how museums should respond to artists in their collection who are accused of crimes such as sexual harassment. The Walker was coming to grips with the allegations against Chuck Close, an artist with whom we have a long relationship. In the past, institutions may have been able to sidestep these conversations, but in the era of #metoo and #blacklivesmatter, that has become impossible (thank god). Like many museums, we don’t necessarily have the exact forum or protocols to discuss these issues in depth, and quickly, and with a firm, convincing solution.

And in fact, adopting an attitude of active and generous learning coupled with a dedication to justice was the only path forward. In the middle of this, publishing about the topic and soliciting opinions from a variety of diverse and expert opinions inside and outside the field was a great way for us to learn. I’d like to say that publishing like this is fully baked into our institutional culture, but it’s not yet. But more and more, the institution sees publishing as a way to ask difficult questions of ourselves, by asking the smartest people we know to tell us what they think. I think it is a significant strategy that we should lean into moving forward.

Another project that I’m quite proud of is LOOP, a jazz magazine by pianist and artist Jason Moran. The publication is rare in that it is written from within the jazz world by African American musicians, representing Moran’s broader network of collaborators. While working with Moran on a print publication for his exhibition, he mentioned that he was self-publishing this magazine. I immediately asked if he needed a digital home for it, and once he agreed we went about translating his work into a digital space, adding expanded media and reformatting the content. We plan on supporting Moran moving forward, helping him publish future issues of the magazine. Being able to support an artist in their own publishing efforts is a unique service that the Walker is able to offer. We didn’t originate the content, but being able to amplify it was fantastic.

Within the larger Walker publishing ecosystem, we also have a smaller corner dedicated to design publishing called the Gradient. This is our department’s blog, which is actively populated through the members of the design team, with my general editorial oversight. It’s an interesting hybrid of a publication in that it exists as a professional expression of the Walker’s design program but it also serves as a loose repository for the studio’s thinking and output. What started as a vehicle to show off the studio’s design work has come to feature a large number of interviews with designers around the world, excerpts of long-form essays, visual posts, and online experiments. In terms of the content we feature, I am very interested in publishing around design practices and cultures that are outside of the typical US-based design conversation that centers on brands and advertising. We look for people who represent new ways of working or see design through unique ideologies. Designers in the studio also pursue different topics of research, such as a recent series on bootleg aesthetics. Our basic tagline is “Mapping the gradient between art and design,” which at first blush sounds kind of cheesy, but through the years has held up as an accurate description, partially because the definitions of all the words involved are so ambiguous.

I think there is something special about designers who publish, at least in the way they approach the format. The designers think very visually, and understand that our audiences are very visual thinkers, and approach a post much more from a craft perspective than a writing-centric perspective. This is maybe both our strength and our weakness. Like me, they also think of publishing through the lens of learning, and often choose to interview designers who inspire their own practice. The blog allows all of us to intellectually contribute to something that we co-create as a studio, and it creates a space for all of us to talk about design in both a broader and a smaller sense. Because the Gradient is run by designers with full-time jobs, it can be a struggle to maintain a consistent publishing schedule. We go through periods of heavy posting and periods of super light posting. I’d love to get a handle on that, and institutionally we are trying to regulate our various blogs, but at the same time I love the fact that the publication is really a part of who we are and rises and falls with the breath of the studio. We practice and we publish.

There are also projects we work on that stretch the definition of publishing. A few years ago I created a project called Intangibles, which invited artists and designers from all disciplines to create intangible shop products/artworks that would be sold through our official Walker shop site. Because we were basically collaboratively creating sixteen conceptual artworks, the conversation turned toward crafting the expression of the intangible object through the lens of the frame, which in this case was the Shopify platform. We narrowed down the expression of a conceptual product to the title, the image, the price variations, and the description, and with these four primary components, we went about crafting each intangible object.

Quickly it became apparent that many of the artists and designers were interested in utilizing the description field as a place for textual expression, sometimes embedding an entire essay into the space where a short product description usually goes. And in this way, with virtual products that were most likely to be experienced by people online, the project started to take on the qualities of a publication. I started to understand the entire product line as one big book that happened to be published through the framework of the Walker’s shop.

Another example is a series of online experimental blog posts that we will be releasing in the coming year. These are basically giant slide shows that utilize heavy graphics and videos to create short narratives—or anti-narratives. It’s basically offering artists and designers the space of our blog templates to visually experiment through.

In general, for us publishing represents a space that is just waiting to be inhabited with innovation and experimentation and new voices. And within an institution, you can have an official content strategy that ties together marketing, PR, digital, social, all under an overarching brand voice—and then under that you can have more oblique strategies, through the lens of publishing, that may challenge the overall institutional thinking, operating in more slippery, personal, and potent ways.

How do you distribute your work?

For our print publications we work primarily with our distributor, DAP/Artbook. We’ve had a long relationship with them and they do a fantastic job of getting our books into stores around the world. There is a great sense of trust between them and the Walker, and it is always a pleasure to work with an organization that appreciates the risks we might want to take with our publications (not that they’re incredibly risky). We also have a few smaller experiments with print-on-demand publishing and zine publishing which are barely distributed.

For our digital publishing we obviously push it through the web, and very minimally through email and social. This is really a significant problem for the entire endeavor—without dedicated and usually paid promotion behind our digital publishing, it will rarely reach any broader audiences. This is a part of the paradigm shift within the institution that I mentioned earlier—staff time and mental space has been dedicated to online publishing and by extension virtual audiences, but very little resources have been shifted in that direction, since in general, arts institutions are feeling the financial pinch from every direction. Part of my work here, and the online editor’s work, has been trying to understand how publishing can be baked into our institutional processes and budgets—so thoroughly integrated into what we do that the resources shift happens naturally. This means mapping out the institution’s larger content strategies (in both simple and sophisticated ways) and illustrating how publishing is viable. It’s an ongoing challenge.

What challenges do publishers face today?

I don’t think I can really represent the broader challenges that all publishers face, but I can speak to some specific challenges that arts institutions might face. There is a push and pull between content that represents the institution’s mission versus content that markets the institution’s programs. There is a desire for publishing to act as institutional critique, but obvious PR consequences to that approach. There are conversations that we would like to publish around that involve diving deeper into where our funding comes from, which is a fraught place to be in. There is the reality of “cancel culture” and online culture in general that can make the act of publishing unique perspectives a challenge. There’s a general sense that publishers need to rely on companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to distribute their content, even though these companies censor, suppress, and profit from our content. There are interpersonal challenges in that artists understand their ownership over their work, their image, their voice in very different ways, and approaching every publishing venture with that sensitivity is incredibly valuable and time consuming. There is the challenge of validating publishing as a valuable endeavor, even when it is not making a profit. There is the challenge of treating our publishing as core to our jobs, instead of something that often happens on top of our jobs. There is a challenge of time and expertise. There is a broader challenge of attention spans. There is the challenge of climate change. Et cetera.

How have you addressed the challenges?

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

I don’t really think of myself as having a publishing practice. I’m a designer, and a manager, and most recently a curator, and I have a blog, and design books, and work in an arts organization that is dedicated to amplifying artists’ voices and examining and activating the questions that shape and inspire us as individuals, cultures, and communities. My publishing efforts tie into our interpretation efforts, which tie into our marketing and branding efforts, our community outreach efforts, our presentation of artists and artworks, and so on. Because I’ve experienced most of my career in a place where these efforts are so seamlessly woven together (or seek to be), I’m lucky to understand my design practice as encompassing the act of publishing and vice versa. When we hire designers, we are looking for people who love to make, and set type, and also think and make thoughts visible in the world. I think for a lot of us, publishing is a natural extension of being a designer, and often represents a space that lies adjacent to the typical client-facing practice, and often complements it. I’d say that some of my favorite publishing practices appear to be so thoroughly integrated into the author/designer’s lives that they don’t appear to be a separate endeavor.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

I suppose publishing is as radical as the intention behind it, at whatever scale that makes sense. If the Walker succeeds in using publishing as a form of self-critique, I think that would be progressive, but we’re not there yet. When Hardworking Goodlooking uses publishing and print catalogues to speak about vital cultural and political issues and does so in a way that is true to their being and their sense of their community, that is radical. When Paul Soulellis uses digital formats in experimental ways to restore access to all of the climate change science that the current White House administration erased from EPA.gov, that is radical. The content of Cuba’s El Paquete Semanal is maybe not incredibly radical, but the way in which it is bypassing monitored and censored channels is radical. Publishing that takes into account the larger systems it operates within is radical—such as inherent algorithmic bias. Publishing in unexpected places can be progressive. There’s a ton of amazing things happening out there.

How and why do you publish?

This question sounds like “how come” I fell into the world of publishing. So, how did I fall into this “hole” of publishing? I often ask myself that same question before I fall asleep. The answer is this: I often think to myself, I was skilled enough to work in other areas of work, but I chose this job because I love it. However, as I think back now, I’m involved in publishing because I had no other choice. If you want a simpler answer, I would reference a line from Book Island, one of our publications: “I always learn from animals how not to ask why. For example, why publish a book? No need to ask and even if there is an answer it is too simple.” Of course, I love my work.

What type of material do you publish?

Most of the books are written by others, but sometimes there are books written or translated by our colleagues. However, some books cannot be classified into either category. For example Rainbow Sherbet, which was recently released, is related to Min Guhong, an editor at Workroom Press. Min established a company called Min Guhong Manufacturing in 2015, but unlike other companies, it’s a one-person venture that is parasitic on a host company (Workroom) and is operated using the host’s real estate and assets (such as the office, computer, printer, and coffee machine). Most of all, it focuses on introducing Min Guhong Manufacturing itself in many ways, and releases by-products from the process as its products. Rainbow Sherbet provides user reviews and information on several products that have been released by Min Guhong Manufacturing. Contributors include a designer, a poet, a photographer, and a novelist. Furthermore, the typeface used on the cover was also released by Min Guhong Manufacturing.

It’s called Times Blank, and according to the producer it’s a typeface that is “great to use while listening to John Cage’s 4′33" [and] inspired by Adobe Blank, which has erased all the letters in the Times New Roman font.” It was released in November 2017. It’s a very friendly typeface, so it can melt around invisibly in any environment. If you try to point out only one shortcoming, it’s that you can’t see any of the letters.

How do you distribute your work?

We distribute books through online and offline bookstores, and sometimes participate in book fairs. One of the questions we often hear from people when we take part in a book fair is where they can buy such books. The answer is simple: they’re sold at bookstores. Obviously it’s not that easy to find our books in a regular bookstore. That said, you can find them if you search hard or ask for help from a bookstore employee. Some books are distributed more through specialized bookstores—those that handle independent publications—than through regular bookstores. There weren’t these kinds of bookstores in Korea when I started Workroom, but now there are noticeably more. One such place was a bookstore called Gagarin, which Workroom ran at the time with its neighborhood (gallery, café, architect). I think Gagarin contributed—and to a considerable degree—to an independent publishing trend in Korea that emerged around the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century.

On top of that, there are soaring housing prices and monthly rents to think about. In fact, we don’t—or can’t—react very sensitively to the environment surrounding the publishing industry. It’s said that the publishing market is taking a turn for the worse, but we’re not responding to it in a proactive way. We’ve also been ineffective at looking back on our position in the present, while worrying about the unpredictable conditions of the publishing industry in the future.

I think that the distinct division between the editors and the designers is also of great assistance in making the books of Workroom Press look different from those of other publishers. This was not intended, but the de facto rule was naturally established because our company was jointly established by an editor and two designers. If we don’t clearly divide roles, we would probably argue with each other.

How and why do you publish?

There are several client-based publishing works that I do regularly. However, I mostly publish to document “time-based design work” I’ve curated. For example, I’ve been doing a map publishing group project for ten years. Also, I design various curriculums for adults as well as teach children. As I update my curriculums every semester, I try to publish them in the form of a manual that includes everything from the process to the results for each class.

What type of material do you publish?

Mainly my friends and I have been working as a group named Amateur Seoul where we deal with different neighborhoods in Seoul, focusing on a variety of topics to deliver the story of the area using the “map” as a tool. For each issue we choose one neighborhood with one or more locals who have been living and/or working in that area for more than a decade. Every issue consists of a double-sided map and a (text-based) guidebook. In addition to that I enjoy designing books that take the form of manuals.

How do you distribute your work?

We used to distribute through various independent bookstores, but it was difficult to track down stock and what we sold in each store, so we decided to sell them only through the art book fairs in Seoul. We are slowly planning to participate in some international book fairs.

What are some of the challenges when publishing in multiple languages?

The Korean language is very implicit, so translating the same information to English always takes up more space than the Korean text. This leads to a design challenge to make both texts look balanced. There’s also an additional effort required for people to understand certain cultural nuances and historical contexts of certain words or terms.

Compared to the amount of typefaces you can choose in English, there are only a few to use in Korean, since designing Korean typefaces take much more time. This makes it hard to find the right Korean typeface that matches perfectly with certain Latin typefaces.

How do the works you publish address a certain need or community in Korea, or maybe even in the world?

Our works are basically tour guides of Seoul. They can be special for both Koreans and foreigners because we introduce hidden locations and stories that no one might ever encountered before.

Do you distinguish between your publishing practice and other practice(s)? What is your intent in doing so (or not)?

If I have to distinguish mine from others, I’d say my intention to publish comes from an obsession of trying to record small local histories with otherwise ephemeral destinies.

What is a “radical” model of publishing?

I observed many such works in a class I taught this semester called “Architecture of the Book.” I would say a “radical” or “progressive” model comes from an attitude to not be afraid of crappy forms of books, but to just purely focus and try to create the right form for the idea you have.