In English

“We Print Zines!” – Letterpress Workshops
Confronting old and new media on the basis of publishing a zine.

Project overview
Letterpress workshops with the aim of designing and producing a paper zine – an amateur
magazine-like publication. Every participant designs one page which, together with the pages of the
other participants, is printed in a predefined amount of copies using letterpress equipment and other
manual reproduction methods.

Each set of printed pages is sewn together to form a ready publication. In the next step it is digitized
and published on the internet by means of free tools for distributing information (e.g. Scribd.com).
During the workshops the participants get to know the basics of typography, theory of signs and
history of communication and media to better understand the processes behind information
exchange.

After the workshop the results of the students' work are presented on an exhibition and copies of the
zine are distributed for a fixed price or through auctions.

Theoretical guidelines
The ultimate goal for the participants of the workshop is to try their strenght in a public discourse
both by means of traditional and new media and to gain empirical knowledge of the processes
behind publishing information. The students not only get to know the traditional ways of
mechanically reproducing information but also the contemporary techniques that stem directly from
them. They can thus become acquainted with the evolution of mass communication from
complicated, elitary technologies of local reach to user-friendly, accessible tools of global reach.
The subject of the zine is chosen together with the students through open debate. The approach can
be political, social and ecological as well as personal. The subject will be chosen keeping in mind
that after publishing and distributing the zine its message gains a new level – it becomes an official
statement of its authors.

A zine produced that way is a collection of  the authors' statements and comments to reality.
Through the collective character of the creation process and the open participation the zine is in
itself an example of the democratization of media that contemporary societies undergo thanks  to
the development of new technologies and free access to information. It shows that the exchange and
dissemination of information is with each day less elitary and more accessible.

On the artistic level, even though each zine is a collection of individual ideas, the overal visual level
and consistancy of the produced materials are looked after by the author of the workshops. He is
also directly involved in the creative process composing his own part of the material together with
the participants. The ultimate look of the result of each edition of the workshops will vary
depending on the skills and ideas of the participants.



Technical details (will vary depending on venue and available technology)
Every zine will be produced manually on a flat letterpress. The texts are set by hand with wood and
metal type and illustrations are produced by means of linocuts, stencils, transfers or other manual
reproduction techniques. After finalizing the manual work the artworks are scanned or
photographed to be distributed on the internet.
Every zine will be published under the creative commons license granting the right to redistribution
by a third party with the exeption of commercial use.
Equipment used during the workshops:
  • flat letterpress, metal type
  • paper, ink
  • linoleum, chisels 
  • acetone, photocopier 
  • silkscreen equipment, ink
  • sewing machine
  • scanner or digital camera
The workshops can be conducted during 2–3 weeks depending on the size of the group and on the
teaching schedules. The first days are used to talk about zines and communication in
general and during that time the theme is chosen and ideas and concepts for each page are
developed. The second step is to start producing the illustrations. Once all illustrations are printed
we proceed to working with letterpress and metal type. The ready material is bound using a sewing
machine. A few copies of the works are left unbound – they are displayed on the exhibition that
sums up the workshops.

The course of the workshop is documented and supported through a website that gathers useful
materials, photographic documentation and the results of the work.
It is advisable to announce an open call for participation so that every person that joins the
workshop is genuinely interested in the subject.

Past editions
The workshop has been conducted earlier this year in Warsaw at the Academy of Fine Arts. It was
announced to students of the industrial design department who had little experience with manual
printing techniques. The workshops lasted for 3 weeks and ended with an exhibition at the academy.
The documentation of the process of the workshop, the results and the exhibition opening are all
available on the website http://drukujemyzin.blogspot.com

Bibliography
Prints and Visual Communication, William M. Ivins, MIT Press 1969
Prints & People - a Social History of Printed Pictures, A. Hyatt Mayor, Princeton University Press 1980
The Man and His Signs, Adrian Frutiger, Do/Optima 2003 Warsaw
The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind, D. Diringer, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw 1972
The Complete Manual of Typography, James Felici, Słowo/Obraz 2006
Zines, Liz Farrelly, Booth-Clibborn Editions 2001
Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture, S. Duncombe, Microcosm Publishing 2008
Notes from Russia, Alex Plutser-Sarno, Fuel 2007
Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig, Penguin Books 2005
Hey, Kidz! Buy this Book, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Soft Skull Press 2004