In 2014, CSS regions became unsupported by browsers such as Chrome, Chromium and Opera. Until then, this had been a way to deal with multiple text flows in web-to-print publications, mostly for multi-lingual and multi-purpose texts to sit close together in a layout. What followed was not just an adaptation to the new standard, but also attempts to maintain the old one with hacks and workarounds. Shifting standards precipitate adaptations to a new way of working, as well as careful preservation of tried-and-true methods. Along the way, however, the stories around these practices are often lost to time as the tools take centre stage in the narrative.
Now, we would like to import, export and lay out conversations between graphic designers, tool developers and those who maintain and propose standards. This two-day session will make space for collective learning, with a specific focus on the relations between individuals, groups and tools working on/with web-to-print design practices. Tools that are used in this practices include paged media tools such as CSS, Paged.js, Weasyprint and many more.
Concretely, during the Publishing Partyline we would like to dive into the dependency relations that are being formed when working with web-to-print techniques, between designers-and-tools and between tools-and-standards. Over two days we will listen to each other and record stories around these tools, the moments of stress, excitement, discomfort and adventure. We'll do this by using a range of web-to-print workflows that different collectives have been working with throughout the years, including Ethertoff (OSP), pad2print (Luuse) and Octomode (Varia).
We will depart on this journey with a radio series with practicioners from this field. Tune in to https://stream.vvvvvvaria.org on the following days:
- Wednesday September 7th, 18:00-19:00 (CEST): with OSP
- Wednesday September 21th, 18:00-19:00 (CEST): with Paged.js
- Wednesday October 5th, 18:00-19:00 (CEST): with Julien Biderot and Quentin Juhel
To register interest in participating in this Partyline, please send an email to info@varia.zone with [publishing partyline] in the subject by the 30st of September, 2022 7th of October, 2022. We are looking for a group of designers who are curious about, or have working experience with web-to-print techniques. To get the best out of the Publishing Partyline*, attendance on both days is important & appreciated. The Publishing Partyline is organised by Manetta Berends and Simon Browne.
Follow our log to get a glimpse on the preperations: https://vvvvvvaria.org/logs/publishing-partyline/
Date: Friday October 14th and Saturday October 15th, 2022
Time: 11:00-18:00 on both days (with an hour lunch break between 13:00-14:00)
Location: Varia (Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam)
*Partylines are two day-long semi-structured collective learning situations. The name is inspired by local loop telephone circuits between neighbours, which made it possible to tune into a collective call. These so called "partylines" quickly became a source of entertainment, a place where gossip is shared, but also where emergencies would be communicated. The convivial and communal function of the historical partylines is what inspired us to organise 5 thematic partylines in the 2022 Varia programme.
This project is supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL.
