SEEN AND SKUNK'D

TDR ©1964

I have had a curious morning of browsing admired design websites that have presented publications in a variety of ways. 

Today as I work in my studio at school, I aim to document my work from the last year. So far the documentation styles of my books are not consistent in any way, and after my findings I am still not so confident about any one strategy. 

At the Walker Art Center, Mylinh Trieu Nguyen reports on a beautiful fluxus book with clean, flatbed scans, on black background, that I recognize from Chad Kleopfer's documentation method. I notice in the bookshelf section of the Walker design blog, Emmet Byrne had a more dynamic approach that includes a photo of a levitating book (I couldnt help but wonder how involved Greg Beckel was at mastering that drop shadow in photoshop), and variously angled macro photos including the humane effect of the hand-browsing element, that really puts a book in to context. 

By some twist of fate, I then looked at a new website featuring my friend's old-ish skateboarding magazine, in all of its 4 issues. Luke Hunt recently set up this SKUNK blog that exhibits their magazines with an interactive feature that allows the viewer to flip/click through each issue that is programmed to represent a glossy sheen on fluidly flipping pages. It is uniquely satisfying to me, regardless if I have all 4 printed magazines in my library 5 feet away...

I wonder what the future of book documentation is. Could I invent it today? Could I ever accept all of my craft to be represented on flash-animated pages like my Rad Dude Dicky article in Issue #2 of SKUNK mag? (I will now introduce the beginning to my new documentation process, which includes screenshots of my work as seen on isuu.com)

SKUNK ©2005