One of the many many things that is cool about being a writer who works with designers is seeing the interaction that often happens between text and design. I’ve always been interested in the visual quality of words, how linguistic and visual languages inform and sculpt each other, and how the brain responds to both.

Additionally, there is no more rewarding experience than to inspire and collaborate with other artists. It’s no fun to just fly solo, though it’s an easy trap to fall into as a creative writer. It’s months of you and your work on one piece, with very little collab or outside attention, and then what? Maybe if you’re lucky, 100 people will read your sonnet in a literary magazine. Or you’ll be Maya Angelou. That’s the scale.

Anyhoo, I love Born Magazine. It’s an online literary magazine but its key differential is the flash design that is ascribed to each individual piece. Artists are paired with writers to collaborate on a word/visual poem. Their new issue is out and I’m analyzing it as we speak. Check it.

Recently, I organized a letterpress workshop for AIGA with Jim Sherraden and Brad Vetter from Hatch Show Print. If you’ve never heard of Hatch Show Print before, I’m sure you’ve seen their work at some point in your life. Hatch is an old fashioned letterpress shop in Nashville, TN that has been in existence since 1879. From their beginnings of printing large posters for minstrel shows and circuses, they have done work for country music & bluegrass musicians, rock stars, tv stations, weddings, and various businesses. They are a working museum that is now owned by the Country Music Hall of Fame, and everyday they design and print posters using metal and wood blocks for imagery and type. The greatest thing about Hatch is that the blocks you’re printing on, are blocks that have been used for various projects throughout Hatch’s history.

During the summer of 2005, I was able to intern for 2 1/2 months at Hatch Show Print. Working under the current manager Jim Sherraden, as well as other deisgners at the shop, I was able to design posters for the Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Kenny Chesney, John Mellencamp & John Fogerty, and even for HGTV. Everyday I’d go to work using wooden type and images that had been part of the shop’s history. I’d hand mix the ink that I wanted to use, lockup the metal and wood blocks in a press, and hand crank each print one color at a time. 

Soon after getting back to Boston, I had to start looking for a job and started showing my portfolio around,. I included all the posters that I had printed at Hatch, and was getting an amazing response to them. People kept asking about how it was to live in Nashville, the process of printing posters, as well as just working in the shop. The one thing I kept hearing from everyone was about how they would love to be able to go down there just to work, but are unable to for many reasons including jobs, families, and other responsibilities.

Last year I joined the AIGA events planning board, and brought Jim Sherraden back to Boston to give another lecture. The lecture itself sold out, and had an overwhelming response. While Jim was up here, we started discussing the possibility of him coming back to Boston to do workshop. Thankfully we were able to work out the details and a few weeks ago, on June 14th, Jim gave a letterpress workshop at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in their letterpress labs.

There were 24 people that took the workshop throughout the day, including Jim Gibson, James Grady, and Dan Perrera from kor group. Jim Sherraden came along with Brad Vetter, a designer from Hatch, and they brought along with them about 70 lbs. of letterpress blocks. Jim talked about the history of the shop, as well as showing everyone different techniques for printing. Some people would do a majority of their printing by just hand brayering the blocks and pressing them onto the paper. Other people wanted to learn more about the presses, and Brad and myself helped them lock-up text and imagery and showed them how to print.

During the 4 hour session, people were able to design and print using these old blocks that have been a part of Hatch’s history. Everyone walked away with at least 4-5 prints on paper, as well some people who experimented printing on t-shirts, jeans, and other fabrics. While many people will never be able to get to move down to Nashville and actually work at Hatch Show Print, I’m glad I was able to, in a way, bring the shop to them.

Below you will see a few photos from the workshop, as well as a selection of prints by Jim, James & Dan from kor group.  

Ever get tired of seeing browser buttons when you’re trying to present your sweet new website design? So did the barbarian group. They made Plainview, a full screen browser for your mac, to remedy the situation. It’s a little quirky, but nice.

You’ve heard it by now. The new iPhone is $200 and by the way it’ll ride on AT&T’s 3g network. Oh, and even better, it will now have exchange support with the new iPhone 2.0 firmware! Whoa, whoa, whoa. First of all this is a design blog, secondly kor group doesn’t work off of an exchange server, so what gives with the incredibly geeky post that bows at the alter of Apple’s handy work?

I got news for you. The 3 aforementioned characteristics are going to change the face of the internet. It’s about to get much more mobile. Here’s why:

$200?!?!?
That figure stings a little for those of us who decided to drop $500 to be an early adopter. The good news is that this is the price point that changes the game. Not only does that make the iPhone the most affordable smart phone on the market available, it makes a great experience mobile web affordable to just about everybody.

3g is the place to be
The new network is fast. Really fast. When your cellular data network approaches WiFi speeds you can bet that you’ll see even more iPhone users cruising the web.

Exchange Support
Everybody knows someone who works for an über corporation. You can usually spot these folks tapping away on their Blackberry and saying something to the effect of “Yeah, the iPhone is great but Company X gives this one to me for free!” Well, those days are over. Not only will iPhone be an option, it’ll be a much less expensive option. Not to mention being a much better device.

What’s the point?
While others were trying to figure out how to hide Qwerty keyboards in their handsets and letting software go by the wayside, Apple has given the internet the next big mobile platform. I’d be willing to be that there are a lot more clients calling to make sure they’re websites are iPhone compatible or asking for UI design on a iPhone app that they can distribute for free via the iTunes store. Go mobile or go home.

Robert Rauschenberg has been a huge influence and inspiration in my life/art/design. I just found out that he passed away last month. He is one of those people I would want to have at my table if I could invite any 10 people over.

I thought this was a nice excerpt from the NYT article. It reminds me a lot of me.

“Screwing things up is a virtue,” he said when he was 74. “Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.”