A pleasant surprise
Ben emailed me last week promising a surprise, which duly arrived in the post yesterday.
He and Russell have published a tabloid newsprint publication featuring some of their favourite posts from 23 friends’ blogs last year. The project came about when they found out how cheap and easy it is to print 1000 copies of a newsprint tabloid. They also wanted to draw attention to some longer written pieces that are more easily assimilated in print than online.
A simple idea, beautifully executed, Things Our Friends Have Written on the Internet 2008 takes the online rules and applies them to print – the content has been appropriated without permission, and including all mistakes and typos, but with full credit and relevant links. Just like a blog. It makes for a beguilingly charming mix of content:
Musings on AS Byatt distractingly playing with a roll of sellotape during a panel discussion…
…and a collection of favourite meals from Flickr.
Each piece of content is attributed with URL and date.
The pages vary in pace, from a full-out picture…
…to an entire Twitter feed about landing on Mars (!)
Things Our Friends Have Written on the Internet 2008 is a lovely publication that successfully translates blog content into print without losing the material’s internet origins. Ben and Russell have selected the material well, but they have also presented it in a way that doesn’t alter it’s significance. What are simple, small ideas and thoughts in an online context haven’t been squeezed into a hyped up magazine-style page design. Instead the publication uses a simple five-column grid and a single text font, Plantin (‘because I liked it in Monocle’, explains Ben) with various headlines faces as appropriate. This is where Ben has had some gentle fun – Dopplr creator Matt Jones’ post leads with the Dopplr font for instance, and the cover features what Ben calls the ‘font of the year’, Gotham as used by the Obama campaign.
They were keen to avoid creating a pastiche of a newspaper, the only concession being the use of random Tweets at the top of each page to mimic running heads. ‘Without that furniture the newspaper felt strangely unfinished’ says Ben.
The result is a tidy but raw blog-like feel that deals with presentation in a very matter-of-fact manner. Some images remain pixelated, being taken from the websites, but there is no attempt to make the overall design web-like. It just shares an aesthetic with the simplicity of blogging software templates.
Their editorial note signs off with the comment that, ‘2009 feels like a year for printing and making real stuff in the real world. It’s going to be exciting’. Sounds good to me – lets get making!
Get a copy of Things Our Friends Have Written on the Internet 2008 here.
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Great idea, beautiful result! I’m really jealous because my postman never brings suprises like that. ;)
Comment by Oliver — January 11, 2009 #
I love the colour change at the fold :-)
I just requested a copy, but will be surprised if they mail to a New Zealand address (although I’d happily pay postage)
Comment by Mathew Sanders — January 11, 2009 #
Where did you get this printed?
Comment by Simon Roberts — January 12, 2009 #
thanks Jeremy, That’s very kind.
Mathew – don’t worry we’ll ship one to New Zealand. Might not be there tomorrow though :)
Comment by russell — January 12, 2009 #
Interesting – you said it was really cheap to get 1000 of these printed.. how cheap exactly?
Comment by Ian harris — January 12, 2009 #
This looks great.
Comment by Stuart — January 12, 2009 #
fantastic!
Comment by Hugh McGuire — January 12, 2009 #
Exciting stuff. I’ve ordered mine already. :)
Comment by Michael [linefeed] — January 12, 2009 #
i’ve printed several 2-color minitab books in new york city for about $300 per 1000. i wouldn’t imagine that size to be a whole lot more.
a lot of guys are doing zines like this as well. at 30¢ a piece, you can mail them out to everyone for free and still have a ton left over. awesome promo piece. ryan foerster (ryanfoerster.com) has put out a lot this way and they look great.
Comment by mike ley — January 12, 2009 #
> the content has been appropriated without permission
huh? because the license was authorizing it?
Comment by Karl — January 12, 2009 #
Like Ian I wonder how much the production of such a tabloid format costs. Is it offset or digital printed?
Comment by Oliver — January 12, 2009 #
to add to my post, they were OG web offset, not digital, and surprisingly cheap at that low of a quantity.
this tabloid looks like the text component to faund. i like it.
Comment by mike ley — January 12, 2009 #
After reading umpteen “print is dead because of the internet” stories it’s nice to see something that reverses the idea somewhat.
Comment by LondonLee — January 13, 2009 #
I’m very much interested in this print shop you are talking about Michael. Could you please send me the name of it by email? mail at 2left2right.com
Thanks.
Comment by Gudmundur — January 14, 2009 #
Seeing as so many of you have emailed to ask questions, here’s a link to (hopefully) some answers.
http://tinyurl.com/pgram016
Comment by Ben — January 14, 2009 #
Thank you for this superb article. But I had difficult time navigating past your website because I kept getting 502 bad gateway error. Just thought to let you know.
Comment by Matt Call — November 15, 2009 #
,..] magculture.com is another useful source on this issue,..]
Comment by Trackback - Free Internation Call >> How to make free international call — November 19, 2009 #
[...] Enter The Newspaper Club. Fans of the form as well as its content, last year they published a simple, really lovely creation, called Things Our Friends Have Written on the Internet. [...]
Pingback by Magtastic Blogsplosion | What newspapers did next (2) — December 13, 2009 #