Saturday 27 August 2011

Disclaimer.

Before I begin the serious business, I feel obliged to tell you what this blog is NOT.
Here are two main facts you should know in advance:


FIRST. This is NOT an attack toward the Internet. I wouldn't be fighting the windmills even if I cared enough (oh, there's just still so much to do beside that!). I still see it as one of the greatest things a human mind could ever come up with - and I don't think my feelings are going to change soon. However, I suppose everyone has their own little issues with the technology progress. Mine, as you see, is the changing scenery of publishing; I simply hate all the lovely Graphic Design for Publishing heading for a cozy warm place in all these boxes that keep getting created. I don't really believe all the offscreen publishing is going to be completely extinct - it belongs in the same category of myths as the paperless offices. But before publishing gets completely mad about its convenience and convenience only, I would love to encourage you to see how awesome it can be when Publishing interacts with Life. Stay tuned to see what I mean.

SECOND. When I was sharing my idea with some friends, I realized there might be some confusion about what exactly I mean by saying offscreen publishing. The design for offscreen publishing (or design for publishing offscreen) is the design created for publishing on physical material. Whether its paper, plastic, walls, buses, clothes, dogs or something. Or, in other words, publishing which is not merely a digital image you can manipulate on screen. And the point I intended to make was: design for offscreen publishing is not necessarily handmade. This kind of design can be (and usually is) created using computers. But the difference is that eventually it becomes a physical object, which you can see and interact with even when your laptop is turned off. (I dare you to try and see whether you remember how that feels.)

I hope this makes things a wee bit clearer. While the actual format of how I am sharing my thoughts with you is against anything I am trying to prove here (lovely paradoxes), my intention - and a public promise from now on! - is to finally put all this into a printed form. That's to reduce my sins.






Thursday 18 August 2011

Hello, Challenges.

How many blogs does a person start before he/she finally settles down and knows exactly where he/she is heading to?
I've done this more times than I am proud to admit. I would have even let the idea go with the wind, but here it goes.  A summer assingment. Write a blog. About Design for Publishing.

Luckily enough, this sets some sort of a frame, making the whole unpleasant process of kicking off again slightly more beatable. Yikes. 

The task I found the most difficult to beat was the title. The problem is, I tried to come up with something extremely catchy and funny before I settled for the area I was going to cover. A few names came and went. I should have realized they were wrong when I caught myself struggling with brainstorming.


I spent several days for my idea hunt having walks around the town and observing.  Why didn't this hit me immediately? I chose walking instead of googling. Observing the real life instead of surfing the web, which, unfortunately, is gradually becoming the main means of publishing as we know it today.

The point is, the offscreen publishing fascinates me so much more. It's real. It's something you can touch, scratch, tear, change or spoil. LIFE can happen to it, and how amazing is that? None of this could ever threaten the things safely stored online. 

In fact, there's plenty of reasons why I, as a human being, as a consumer, as a future designer, don't want to believe the internet is going to monopolize publishing (I don't believe it anyway, but as long as we're a little unsure, let's linger a wee bit longer). And while you haven't left yet, I'm going to encourage you to stay and see why it's worth being a little sentimental.


The funny thing is, my baby offscreen is going to require me to spend even more time staring at my laptop. Oh well. Life happens.

Stay tuned, and look, I'm finally smiling.