Category: inspiration

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inspiration

Diffusion Archive Highlight: Sea Shanties

Next in the Songs trend is “Sea Shanties” – two volumes of songs sung at sea, selected and introduced by Francis McKee. He states “Beyond society’s canons of literature there are the outlaws – songs and stories that survive in the wild.” It seems these songs are memorised and passed on through their performance alone, rarely being recorded on paper, so it’s unlikely they would be heard outside of sailing circles. Shanties are work songs, the rhythms in time with sailors hauling, and barely sung today due to modern rigging changes. This compilation ensures these tales are not lost to time; these eBooks can be downloaded and reproduced anywhere – perhaps even on deck!

Read more at Andrew Draskóy’s website, Shanties and Sea Songs.

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inspiration

Zine Highlight: The Gentleman Caller

I’ve just ordered “The Gentleman Caller” by Andrea Kearney, but can’t wait for it to arrive, so I’ll highlight it instead. This caught my eye whilst browsing the Zines page on Facebook and seems to be a piece you need to appreciate in physical form, so I might post a few more photos of it when it’s in my mitts.

Its a beautifully surreal and cinematic illustrative zine, making use of double spreads to convey an amazing and disorientating sense of perspective. I love the bizarre imagery and the shading – it’s like a dream (or nightmare) rendered in a book.

It’s available to order here.

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inspiration

Diffusion Archive Highlight: New Worker’s Songbook

Continuing the theme of songs and music, I’m looking at the “New Worker’s Songbook – Song Writing Work Book for New Songs” (phew). In collaboration with the Worker’s Arts and Heritage centre in Hamilton, Ontario, Dodolab and Tiny Bill Cody (Tor Lukasik-Foss) created this eBook to inspire songs that reflect the current realities for workers in Hamilton. It asks the reader about their working experiences, both positive and negative, as well as their identity and responsibilities, to form verse and chorus for their own personal chant. The songbook also provides techniques to memorise lyrics, and how to sing with emotion and purpose, complete with iconic stick figure illustrations.

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inspiration

Zine Highlight: Who ate all the pies?

“Who ate all the pies?” is an A5 illustrated zine by Mark Long, detailing some of the more amusing chants sang by football supporters in the UK. Though composed entirely with a red and blue palette, hes still managed to create depth with shading and contrast, and I love the multitude of faces – the seemingly simplistic lines belie some great characters. The chants themselves are hilarious, I wonder how many of the crowd are Sun headline pundits. It’s available here.

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inspiration

Diffusion Archive Highlight: Bird Song By Melissa Bliss

I’ve just noticed a handful of eBooks and Storycubes in the Diffusion Archive that relate to songs and sound, particularly relevant with our last Pitch In & Publish: City As Material event – “Sonic Geographies”, being held this Friday (which you can book a place for here).

Bird Song was created to accompany a sound installation at the Chiswell Walled Garden in Dorset, for this years b-side festival in September. Each side of the Storycube portrays a silhouette of a different bird in its natural setting, with its particular call represented in onomatopoeic text. It must have been a great visual piece when paired with the sound, especially with the three dimensional form of the Storycube, as the silhouettes start to resemble the shadows of actual birds.

I’ll be looking at the other song themed items soon, and starting to pick up on other collective trends when delving through the archive.

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inspiration

SNAP Zine

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll know I was a tad disappointed by the apparent shortage of literature and poetry zines. Thanks to the Zines page on Facebook, I’ve just found SNAP zine, an international short story and literature zine, complete with illustrations and photographs to accompany the text (and a free badge or two). Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any photos of the inside, but from the cover it looks like a joyous marriage of aesthetics and intelligent text. Might have to buy this to see for myself. It’s available here.

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inspiration

Archive Highlight -Tales Of Things: Objects, Stories & Voices from the BME Communities in Greenwich

This Highlight isn’t actually in the Diffusion archive, as it was created via the bookleteer PPOD service, but I thought it’s a great example of another eBook accompanying an exhibition, similar to the one made for Cosmo China.

“Tales of Things: Objects, Stories & Voices from the BME Communities in Greenwich” was created alongside an exhibition celebrating Black History Month 2010, held at the Greenwich Heritage Centre. Cultural and personal objects were contributed from the Greenwich Black, Asian and minority Ethnic (BME) Forum, to tell stories of cultural identity and heritage.

Each page of the eBook has an image of a particular exhibit, and a QR code that is linked to a digital archive of stories and information for that object, allowing the reader to scan the codes with a phone or computer with a webcam, and access more information than is available in the eBook. This lends a sense of interaction and personal involvement with the object, as they have to physically seek out the tale behind it, not least the addition of  pages at the back of the book for the reader to add their own images, tales and QR codes.

View the tales for the exhibition online here.

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inspiration

Zine Highlight: All My Bikes

I’ve just stumbled across “All My Bikes” by Chris Piascik, an illustrated zine showcasing every bike he’s ever owned. It’s a full colour, 28-page zine, and the quality of printing looks fantastic. The bikes are surrounded, and entwined with, associated words in varying fonts and colours; its not hard to see the effort and affection that has gone into creating this. There’s even several pages at the back detailing the story behind every bike.

It’s available here.

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inspiration

Diffusion Archive Highlight: Cosmo China 20th Anniversary Exhibition

This was created to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Cosmo China, a handpainted ceramic studio and shop in Bloomsbury, London. To celebrate, Cosmo held a special exhibition of 20 plates painted by their artists (and a few special guests) for the occasion, which are showcased in the eBook.

Each page is devoted to one of the plates, and has a brief biography and picture of the artist. The simple format really allows the wonderful designs to shine through, and serves as a great souvenir of the exhibition, or even if the reader wasn’t there, an advert for Cosmo’s talent and charm.

Using eBooks to accompany exhibitions and galleries would make a refreshing change; a portable and attractive guide that trumps individual cards that often get lost or ignored. Curators could also provide an eBook notebook, for people to customise with stickers next to each exhibit that they find interesting – a personalised account of the event.

Read it on Diffusion.

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inspiration

Zine Review: Another Way by Ryan Todd

“Another Way” by Ryan Todd (courtesy of the Zines page on Facebook), is a handstitched illustrated zine, each page with a comical visual pun that is subtly different from the expected norm. It’s super minimalist, and doesn’t seem to have any cover or accompanying text (aside from the back cover credits), which makes these charming, witty illustrations all the more stark and poignant.

The use of purely primary colours lends a really nice uniformity and iconic tone to this zine; it’s quite visually arresting. I’m looking forward to seeing what Ryan creates next.  “Another Way” is available here.