[flickr id=”14201399438″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”medium” group=”” align=”none”]

So, in the last blog post I had mentioned my taking on of an intern for the month of June. While I have been putting her to work doing some of the housekeeping things (writing up inventory lists of equipment for insurance, organizing digital files, and so on) that I don’t have the will to finish, we have also been discussing a newsprint edition that I had been interested in making. Well, add it to the list.

[flickr id=”14386994164″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”medium” group=”” align=”none”]

I had showed Bernadette the newsprint edition of my work from Brazil, just so we could talk about it, and as we did, the possibility of printing off a handmade edition of it came up. It is something that I have been waiting on doing because I had wanted to get it offset printed instead of running newsprint through an inkjet printer. However, the more we talked, the more it seemed like an interesting project, especially when thinking of it as a very nice promotional piece.

[flickr id=”14365069606″ thumbnail=”medium_640″ overlay=”true” size=”medium_640″ group=”” align=”none”]

So we went up to the lab and tested out a huge pack of newsprint that I had bought and gotten cut down. We also went to Blick and found some chipboard, which I had been looking for over the past few months with no luck. Never thought to look at Blick. That will serve as a nice cover to the newsprint and vellum as it too seems like a very disposable material. The next trick was getting the chipboard to run through the printer as it is quite thick. But work it did, and it looks great.

[flickr id=”14201587248″ thumbnail=”medium_640″ overlay=”true” size=”medium_640″ group=”” align=”none”]

I also wanted some way of holding the whole piece together. I settled on tying twine around the chipboard cover, and tying it in a way that it formed a cross on the cover (the Brazil work revolves around religion, so a cross seemed appropriate). Then, instead of tying the twine in the front, we would seal it with a red wax seal (again, referencing an older method of communication). I designed a seal (very simple) of the logo of São Paulo, which is a bird shape. I printed it out on the departments 3D printer, and we’re ready to go.

We also tried flooding the chipboard, which didn’t work so well. Instead, we will be cutting it into three pieces (front, back, and spine) and reconnecting the pieces with red book binders cloth tape to match the red seal.

We are being ambitious, and are hoping that we can crank out 50 of these things over the next couple of weeks. Printing starts Wednesday.