We had our first international project last week (if you discount 2 people video dialling into one of our workshops from Hong Kong and Moscow).
We spent a rather cold day at Amberley Print Workshop last week. The aim was to do some thinking in the morning about what our principles and updated manifesto should look like. We then had a lovely lunch at the Bridge Inn, which was a well needed chance to warm up. We hadn’t quite finished writing stuff up, so we ended up spending a bit more time sorting the words out before we could start laying out the type. These photo’s are from the afternoon, spent composing the type, letter by letter, line by line. For anyone that has used letterpress before, you will know it is a slow process. We hoped to have a poster laid out and ready to print by the end of the day, instead we had a poster ready to be proof read, and in need of some letters replacing and the spacing being sorted out. So, I’m not going to put what we came up with here just yet, but, we will soon, once the poster is ready. For now, enjoy the photo’s of master compositor Steve and the poster ready for proofing.
The best plans are often laid to waste. Week 2 didn’t go exactly to plan due to family and personal matters. I still managed to avoid screens though.
These are my current Friday plans that I’m trying to keep to:
No Screens
Print out anything I might need
Read – start the day reading for an hour
Do/make – Write something
Photograph something
Create something
Meet someone – Matt, James B
And here is what I actually did.
I spent a bit of time on Thursday planning the day ahead, printing stuff out that I might need for meetings. As usual I woke early. I started my day drinking coffee and reading, I’m still reading this. It’s a good book to read in short chunks. I met Matt Weston for coffee. Meeting Matt and others like him often take a back seat when I’m busy. I realise how important these impromptu and informal chats are, so this is high on my list of priorities now. Why is it important? This might sound corny, but, I find my chats with Matt are like shining my brain through a prism, he always ends up making me see stuff in ways I hadn’t considered before. If you’ve never worked with him, I strongly suggest you do at some point.
Then I got to the point where other stuff had to be paused and I had to hang out in the old school world of solicitors. Nothing makes my blood boil more than when my path crosses with industries or people so stuck in the past. This was one of those cases, and it was a stressful 2 hours in the middle of an otherwise lovely day.
When I got back to the workshop, I developed some black and white negatives with the Berberian Sound Studio OST on in the background. I had a backlog of films waiting for my attention, and these no screen Friday’s are putting a nice dent in that pile. By the time I’d hung them to dry, Jim Stephenson turned up for a meeting about a new project we are collaborating on. I can’t say too much about it, but it involves photography, but that’s not really a surprise to anyone that knows Jim. We are launching it on Tuesday 5th February, feel free to join us. By the time I’d written my thoughts up, it was time for the torchlit tour of the Theatre Royal, followed by red wine and bed.
Looking back on week 2, it made me realise that full days with no screens are actually quite hard. There were times when I needed to look stuff up on google, especially for the legal meeting, and I felt hindered. It made me think about week 3, and how I might allow certain screens for particular tools, like a typewriter/evernote.
Spent Friday 18th January working on projects and living life without screens. I should probably define screens a little more. I watched the news and a film on TV. I used my phone for calls, texts, listening to music and taking photo’s. When I say life without screens, I really mean the internet, which for me is defined by screens. Even when I switched my ‘Smart’ TV on, I almost had social TV injected into my eyeballs. Thankfully the ‘Smart’ TV isn’t that smart, and it’s most common feature called ‘not being smart at all’ worked perfectly.
