User:Simon/The Alphabetic Labyrinth

The Alphabetic Labyrinth

Printed: 20.12.19
Dimensions: 190x260mm
Cover stock: Heavy green stock (unknown brand) - around 210gsm
Text stock: Laser 80gsm
Binding: Perfect bound, hot glue
Pages: 330pp

Johanna Drucker's The Alphabetic Labyrinth is a book that traces the history and development of the alphabet. Full of diagrams and densely populated with these histories, it demands printing and reading in physical form. A PDF just won't do. I printed this from a PDF that I laid out quickly in InDesign using my trusty placemultiplePDFpages script. The cover was made on the photocopier, a technique I was well-acquainted with from my days as a teacher, where lessons would be literally cut and pasted together to be copied on the glass. The task that took the most time was making sure the pages would be printed at reasonable size, while economising on paper. For this reason, I wanted to print it double-sided on A4 paper with minimal excess. The annotations (interestingly, many in Greek - a coincidence as the book focuses for some time on development of the Greek alphabet) and artefacts from scanning were retained (such as darkened page edges), creating a materiality that reminds one the book is most definitely loved, copied, and shared.

Front cover
Annotations
A spread
Closeup, featuring darkened edges from scan
Spine
Back cover