MICHEAL HOWARD
M E H A
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AIGA PORTFOLIO REVIEW POSTER PAGE 06 FIBRE MAGAZINE PAGE 10 MAGGIEFEST POSTER PAGE 26 HUCKLEBERRY BREWERY CO. PAGE 30 SAUL WILLIAMS TYPE PCUBE AGE 36 BANDANA SANDWICH PAGE 42 JACKSON AVE PAGE 46 #OCCUPYWALLSTREET PAGE 52
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A I G A P O RT F O L I O REV I EW P OSTER
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DUTIES DESIGN
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ABOUT EVERY YEAR AIGA JACKSONVILLE HAS A PORTFOLIO REVIEW POSTER CONTEST FOR THE A N N UA L P O R T F O L I O R E V I E W. M A N Y E N T E R AND THE WINNER’S POSTER GETS USED IN THE R E V I E W. I WA S F O R T U N AT E E N O U G H T O W I N THE CONTEST AND GET TO SEE MY WORK PUT TO USE.
THE POSTER WAS INSPIRED BY THE MANY MINIMALIST MOVIE POSTERS SEEN ONLINE. A SIMPLE L AYOUT THAT STICKS TO THE GRID.
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F I BR E M AGA ZI N E
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DUTIES DESIGN
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ABOUT FIBRE MAGAZINE IS A COLLECTIVE OF PAPER RECYCLING. ARTICLES FOUND IN THE MAGAZINE WILL ALWAYS SOMEHOW REL ATE TO PAPER--ART MADE OF PAPER, HOW TO RECYCLE PAPER, NEW PAPER TECHNOLOGIES, EVEN WAYS TO M A K E TO I L E T PA PE R M O R E E F F I C I E N T.
DESIGNING AN ENTIRE MAGAZINE WAS NO EASY TASK. EACH SPREAD WAS DESIGNED WITH THAT PARTICUL AR ARTICLE IN MIND.
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JANUARY 2012 • No 1.
A C O L L E C T I V E O F PA P E R R E C Y C L I N G
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JANUARY 2011 • No 1.
A C O L L E C T I V E O F PA P E R R E C YC L I N G
fibremagazine.com
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YARD WASTE AND TOILET PAPER
JEN STARK’S COLORMINDED HANDS
NEWSPAPER WOOD
› Vivian Hua: Chris Crites’ new show features 72 different mug shots on toilet paper tubes, and three mug shots on yard waste bags.
› Cara Despain: Jen Stark creates optically engaging work that carries distinct characteristics of both her birthplace and her age, even if these facets seem mostly subconscious.
› A+. 29: “A reversing of a traditional production process; not from wood to paper, but the other way around.”
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SAVE GREENHOUSE GASES
› John R. Garnet: Does all that heavy lifting really amount to more than a hill of beans?
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MODULAR STORAGE FROM PAPER
› Susan Johnston: 62 percent lighter than particle board — 100 percent recyclable.
21 JESSE MEYER’S INDO RECYCLED PARCHMENT MAKING PAPER DISPLAY WORKSHOP › Demetri Vital: Two appearances on Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” showcased the messy glory of the work done at the Meyers’ tannery.
› Martin Jon: A challenge organized by the City of Chicago’s Department of Environment that asks property owners and their tenants to improve their environmental impact.
TUBE-FREE TOILET PAPER
› Bruce Horovitz: The toilet paper roll is about to undergo its biggest change in 100 years: going tubeless.
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BUYING RECYCLED COPY PAPER
› Eric Bailey: An overview on the resources one can use to purchase recycled copy paper reams.
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1940’s. Each of the mugshots was accompanied by nothing more than a booking charge, and as a history buff, Crites became intrigued by these individuals. “I couldn’t stop wondering what the real story was,” he explains. “Been obsessed with mugshots ever since.” Portraits of criminals make up the bulk of Crites’ works, but he also dabbles in painting nudes and firearms. Beginning with the Seattle’s Erotic Arts Festival years ago, Crites has continued painting nudes on an annual basis since, and going back and forth between nudes and mugshots presents Crites with a unique challenge. It challenges him to shift his focus between the often weathered and haggard images of criminals to the bulbous and voluptuous figures of women. “I can’t really explain why it is that I focus my art on such deviant topics, other than maybe that they are such a draw [because they are] the deviancy that appeals as a dark side to our civilized side,” says Crites. It seems only appropriate to pair such deviant subject matter with an atypical artistic approach. After all, Crites’ pieces are not photo-real Rembrandts or goofy illustrated caricatures. They fall somewhere between the highly illustrated and the photo-real -- living off of shade and contrast, but thriving off of color theory. For his style, preparation is of the utmost importance. First is attaining the images of the subject matter. For his mugshots, Crites owns a few books -- mostly filled with older images from the 1800’s -- but he has found an even better resource in the Washington
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State Archives. Government records, including criminal information, are public domain and paid for by tax dollars, which makes them accessible to Crites. He visits his local wing of the Archives and quite literally digs through boxes of photos until he finds the perfectly unanticipated individuals he’s looking for. “They allow me to go in there and bring my laptop and a scanner, and they bring out big boxes of mugshots,” Crites explains. “Each one’s got like seven hundred mugshots in it, and I just sit there for hours. I have to go through and be like, ‘Oh, this is good,’ and scan it.” Crites has been to the Archives four times. Despite the fact that some images are on slides or out of focus, his potential subjects are still so plentiful in number that he has room to be selective. By working only with criminal subjects from between the 1890’s and 1950’s, Crites purposely reduces the likelihood of art patrons recognizing someone they know in his works. He doesn’t even want the possibility of painting someone’s uncle or grandpa and being faced with legal trouble. “When you see a mugshot [at the Archives], it’s usually just the mugshot. You don’t know what the booking charge is. Some of them do actually have the information on the back, which is really neat, but often times, I don’t have that information...” Crites reveals. “I try to keep [their booking charges] as real as possible, but if I don’t have the information, I’ll just make it up.” Even the most basic of crimes like burglary and theft are worded differently from decade to decade, so
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Crites has lists of crimes from certain time periods to help aid with the description process. Once the subject is chosen, Crites draws a loose sketch on his medium of choice. His original photograph is then adjusted and contrasted in Photoshop so that there is enough definition for him to work with. Not unlike a vector artist might do when illustrating a photograph, Crites pulls five clearly-defined shade groups out of each photograph. Those shade groups are then used as a guideline for his paintings, and five colors fill in the shade groups via a kind of paint-by-numbers approach.
“you can’t just be creating beautiful work in a vacuum, hoping things will happen.” Don’t be fooled, though, for this is no easy childhood activity. Using a 10/0 brush -- just about the smallest brush you can find -- Crites paints his pieces color by color, square by square. “I don’t do any overpainting or any underpainting, so each color goes down by itself,” describes Crites. He details one piece which was completed with great difficulty and time that features the leg of a female model wearing fishnet stockings. “I work from dark to light, so I had the fishnet [stocking] down first, and I had to go into each diamond and fill it in by itself.” “I guess I have OCD,” he adds. And with the amount of detail that
goes into his pieces, it’s hard to tell if he’s joking or not. The results are sometimes psychedelic and sometimes comicbook-like. Color absolutely makes all the difference in Crites’ pieces, which are rather unpredictable from start to finish. Even Crites often has no idea what each finished product will look like. “I just pull out my paints, pick five colors, and work from dark to light. It’s exciting because I never what the full effect will be until the colors are completely in. It’s an ongoing experiment with color,” Crites says. He is particularly drawn to painting with contrasting, bright colors, and his hefty bin of variously colored acrylic paints is proof. Crites originally started out painting on brown paper bags, and it became somewhat a staple of his work. The name of his website, www. bagpainter.com, is a reference to this. And while Crites still prefers brown bags as his primary medium, he’s looking to branch out as well. He sometimes works with wood, has recently begun working with watercolor paper and Okiwara paper, and hopes to work with a renewable wood created from sorghum husk. “Did you ever see the Body Worlds exhibit? This stuff is weird. It looks like a cross-section of flesh,” Crites explains, describing the texture of sorghum husk. “I want to start painting on that, because it’s just so weird- looking.” Also on the list of potential mediums Crites hopes to work is plastic bags. He has also considered taking up screenprinting again so that he can start create one image in
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KrantHout
Dit materiaal laat krantenpapier, dat van hout gem tot hout terugkeren. Als basismateriaal wordt gebr van restpartijen en misdrukken. Het resultaat heef veel overeenkomsten met de eigenschappen van (m
KrantHout is bedacht door Mieke Meijer tijdens aan de Design Academy Eindhoven en is samen me ontwikkeld. Na realisatie zullen de eerste produ collectie van ontwerplabel Vij5 worden toegevoegd.
( n ews p a p e r wo o d )
The Newspaper Wood is a collaboration between two Netherlands designers, Mieke Meijer of Mieke dingen and Vij5, the designlabel that was started by Arjan van Raashooven & Anieke Branderhorst. Mieke Meijer came up with the idea to use piles of discarded daily newspaper making it into a renewed material. The layer of paper appear like lines of a wood grain and the rings of a tree just like a real wood when the Newspaper Wood is cut. It can be cut, milled and sanded and generally treated like other type of wood. Mieke Meijer Designer of Mieke dingen, which she produces on a small scale in her own workshop. Sustainability, utility and beauty are the guiding principles that define Mieke dingen. Mieke dingen matches the needs of the consumer long term and fit well into their environment. Mieke dingen objects therefore keep their value. Their timeless design, their subtly lighthearted character and their distinct functionality create a bond between people and the objects. Flexibility is the key to the choice of basic principles for Mieke dingen: whether it is materials, everyday situations or certain specific techniques. By developing a well-conceived idea and sticking to it, Mieke dingen objects have a distinctive and very recognisable signature. Vij5 (Arjan van Raadshooven & Anieke Branderhorst) Both have totally different characters, resulting in a ‘perfect symbiosis’. They started designlabel Vij5 directly after they both graduated in 2006. Since they work on their product collection together, their interaction seems even stronger. In fact it became one of the basic principles of Vij5, visible in the growing amount of collaborations with other young designers. “We enjoy different visions at situations. But not until we both agree, a product is finished and approved.” A+. 29
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aDYING
BREED
DEMETRI VITAL VISITS JESSE MEYER’S PARCHMENT MAKING WORKSHOP
Jesse Meyer’s reputation for expertise in parchment manufacture certainly precedes him. Two appearances on Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” showcased the messy glory of the work done at the Meyers’ tannery. Binders and conservators use the Meyers’ products and rely on the family’s high-quality leatherwork. Among calligraphers, Jesse is wellknown for not only the quality of his work but his attention to the scribal needs. And for our group of twelve book workers who descended on the Meyer tannery in Montgomery, New York, we could smell the tannery before we entered its aromatic halls. As a sofer – a ritually trained Hebrew scribe – I write on parchment using medieval techniques and, like the binders and conservators in our group, have cultivated a great many questions about the history of parchment production. Of particular interest was Jesse’s firsthand experimentation with the variety of techniques available throughout history for parchment
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manufacture; it was amazing to not only learn about Jesse’s work with various medieval parchment manufacturing techniques, but to try them ourselves! During our time at the Pergamena tannery, we were given an accelerated handson introduction to this work, which taught us how difficult and, well, messy, Jesse’s job really is. After a brief tour of the tannery and its odors, we proceeded through various stages of parchment manufacture – like a cooking show – prepared in advance by Jesse, beginning with a stack of goat skins preserved in salt. These butchered skins were covered in hair, bits of flesh, and the occasional ear, tail, or intestine. We enthusiastically cut off these unnecessary appendages and washed away the salt in order to prepare the skins for a chemical bath which removes their hair. Although traditionally a lime bath, a variety of chemical solutions are now available; Jesse uses two or three baths with different recipes to fully remove the hair down to the follicle.
Large quantities of skins are continuously churned in huge rotating drums designed to fully infuse the skins with the chemicals. After several hours, the drums were opened and we braved the stench of bloated, depilated skins to pull them out and prepare to remove their remaining flesh. The remaining slurry of hair and lime was easily scraped off the skin to reveal the bare outer layer, but the remaining subcutaneous flesh still needed removal. We first used a traditional, long, curved, and concave blade to slice the flesh from now-hairless skins. Then we watched Jesse use his defleshing machine with its large cylindrical blade to accomplish the same task much more quickly. Whereas lime is a basic chemical, acidic solutions were also used historically. A tannery in Morocco that Jesse visited used an acidic slurry made from manure to dehair skins. These varied techniques partly explain, along with species of animal used, the variety of thickness and color of different parchments. Modern parchment making diverges most from historical techniques in the final stages of preparation wherein thickness and color are determined. After another wash to remove
any lime and an enzyme treatment, the most disgusting work was behind us. We made a brilliantly dyed goat skin and an undyed and sanded calfskin. We soaked each and then stretched the wet skin as far as possible to remove excess moisture and oils, the main difference being that the goat skin was soaked in a tub of aniline dye, while the calfskin was soaked in water. Both skins were left to dry on stretchers overnight. The goatskins were complete, but the calfskins needed to be thinned. This was accomplished historically by sanding the parchment down from the flesh side or by pulling these interior layers of skin off by slowly splitting it. Jesse demonstrated several techniques available for sanding. The first was the use of a lunellum or lunelarium, an eight-inch half-moon shaped blade, to scrape away thin layers of dried tissue from the interior of the skin. We could also use several medieval sanding blocks: flour bricks impregnated with glass shards of differing “grits.� We could also use modern electric hand-sanders, which made a long, arduous task a slightly shorter, arduous task. I chose to work primarily with the lunellum, hoping to
MICHEAL HOWARD
In an era where green awareness has become more of a necessity than a simple trend, eco-friendly concerns have increased as questions arise such as which products are better for the environments, or how to buy recycled copy paper. While world human population rises and their effect on the Earth increases, people will need to take bigger steps toward protecting the only planet we currently live on, and one way to do so is to ensure responsible buying habits.
WHEREandHOWto BUY RECYCLED COPY PAPER
For many, the workplace is an office that bustles with business and technology. Office workers are tasked with a wide variance of jobs, and are given an astonishing array of choices of tools with which to accomplish their goals. From among the repertoire of supplies at their disposal, they have different overall strategies to decide on, like whether to buy the premium items or the more economical equipment. Somewhere between the two cost extremes is the quandary of how to buy recycled copy paper. One of the remaining arenas in which brick-andmortar locations still works is the office supply industry, where shops like OfficeMax, Staples, and Office Depot dole out supplies to corporations and family businesses alike. Sometimes, the appeal of a physical location is simply the convenience of instant product availability when something runs out and is needed for an urgent deadline, or other similar situation. Many big-box places even outside the industry may offer recycled copy paper, such as Wal-Mart. In these cases, wondering how to buy recycled copy paper is as easy as figuring out where to find it, and fortunately the cases and reams should be directly located with all the other sorts of copy paper, from colored to bright and of differing print quality
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purposes. The other advantage of in-store shopping is, hopefully, the availability of employees who can answer questions toward making a better purchase decision, such as discerning whether buying recycled products is worthwhile, or the best arrangement to save the most money. Now, shopping by catalogue may seem like an antiquated activity, and may even seem rather hypocritical in light of how to buy recycled copy paper, but in reality that catalogue does still hold an appeal or two; and, remember, that catalogue can arrive in your e-mail inbox each month rather than your mailbox if you wish. The foremost incentive to get on the mailing list for an office supply chain is that you will be communicated to as to the best deals currently running, and which products are on sale, including recycled paper. For those with a flexible purchasing schedule that can be patient enough to wait for the best deal, and then stock up, having the time for the promotion to arrive can be a fantastic prospect. Otherwise, if you have an account rep, you can even contact them with the information in the catalogue to try and arrange a better deal or find out when the next sale on recycled copy paper will be. Figuring out how to buy recycled copy paper does not need to be a difficult challenge, nor even the most worrisome query of your day. With so many office supply resources at our disposal nowadays, the number of excuses is dwindling, and shoppers are better equipped than ever to fully conquer the market. ERIC BAILEY
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CRYSTAL GROVER & LINSEY BURRITT
INDO RECYCLED PAPER PROJECT
Post27 Store — Fall 2010
by MARTIN JON
Designers seeking to inspire small changes towards a better world. Their site-specific installations are constructed with materials that have been diverted from the waste-stream.
Photo by Jen Wiley
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M AG G I E F EST P OS TER
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DUTIES DESIGN
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ABOUT MAGGIEFEST IS A SMALL BUT GROWING WEEK LONG ANNUAL MUSIC FESTIVAL IN MAGGIE VALLEY NORTH CAROLINA. THE TRIP INCLUDES LIVE MUSIC, WHITEWATER RAFTING, ELKVIEWING, HORSEBACK RIDING, AND MORE IN THE HEART OF THE SMOKY MOUNTAINS.
TONS OF OLD TEXTURE AND CLASSIC DESIGN PRINCIPLES WERE USED TO GIVE THE POSTER A RUSTIC FEEL.
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HU CK L E BE R R Y BREWERY CO.
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ABOUT HUCKLEBERRY BREWERY CO. IS A BREWERY B A S E D I N S T. PE T E R S B U R G M I S S O U R I, H O M E TO AMERICAN AUTHOR MARK TWAIN. THE BREWERY IS HEAVILY INSPIRED BY TWAIN AND CRAFTS BEERS THEMED TO THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER AND ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN.
THE BOTTLE L ABELS DRAW INSPIRATION FROM OLD MEDICINE BOTTLES OF THE L ATE 1800’S AND EARLY 1900’S.
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HUCK’S PALE ALE L ABEL DETAIL
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SA U L W I L L I A M S T YP E CUBE
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DUTIES DESIGN
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ABOUT , SAID THE SHOTGUN TO THE HEAD IS A BOOK BY AUTHOR SAUL WILLIAMS THAT USES T YPE I N A N O N-T R A D I T I O N A L WAY. S E N T E N C E S ARE BROKEN INTO FRAGMENTS AND USED AS DESIGN ELEMENTS.
THE IDEA BEHIND THE T YPE CUBE WAS TO TAKE WILLIAM’S PIECE TO THE SCREEN. EACH PANEL PROGRESSIVELY BECOMES MORE DIGITAL AND COMPLEX BY USING POPULAR WEB LANGUAGES L I K E F L A S H A N D J Q U E R Y.
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FIRST PANEL IS SIMPLE AND STATIC.
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SECOND AND THIRD PANELS. EACH USE JQUERY TO FUNCTION. THE SECOND PANEL SLIDES AND GLITCHES AT RANDOM WHILE THE THIRD PANEL ACTS AS A GIANT SLIDE PUZZLE.
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FOURTH AND FIFTH PANELS. BOTH USE FL ASH TO FUNCTION. MULTIPLE SENTENCE FRAGMENTS ORBIT AROUND A CROSS-HAIR ON PANEL FOUR. PANEL FIVE READS ‘READY, AIM, FIRE!’--CLICKING THE PANEL LEADS TO EACH SENTENCE FRAGMENT D R O P P I N G S I M U LTA N E O U S LY.
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THE FINAL PANEL IS A KALEIDOSCOPE OF TEXT FROM THE TEXT.
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BA N DA NA SA N DWI CH
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DUTIES DESIGN
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ABOUT BANDANA SANDWICH IS A JOINT PROJECT WITH A GOOD FRIEND FROM SCHOOL, JOHN TAYLOR.
BANDANA SANDWICH IS A USER-DRIVEN PRINTER AND STORE OF POSTERS. USERS SUBMIT A UNIQUE POSTER THAT OTHER USERS CAN VOTE ON TO GET PRINTED. PERIODICALLY POSTERS ARE CHOSEN AND GET ADDED TO THE SITE’S STORE. A SORT-OF ‘THREADLESS FOR POSTERS.’
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HOME PAGE
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( TO P ) P R O C E S S PA G E B R I E F LY G O E S O V E R T H E P R O C E S S O F GET TING A POSTER PRINTED. (BOT TOM) STORE PAGE
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JACK SON AV E.
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ABOUT JACKSON AVE IS A SIMPLE BUT BOLD T YPEFACE. INSPIRED BY THE PICTURE ON THE FOLLOWING PAGE, JACKSON AVE STARTED OUT AS A SIGN FOR NEW JACKSON SQUARE CIGARS, A CIGAR MANUFACTURER FROM THE EARLY 1900’S IN NEW ORLEANS.
JACKSON AVE COMES IN TWO WEIGHTS: SANS A N D S L A B S E R I F.
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T YPEFACE SPECIMEN
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T YPEFACE INSPIRATION
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SANS SERIF VARIANT
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SL AB SERIF VARIANT
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# O CCU P YWA LLS TREET
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DUTIES DESIGN
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ABOUT IN L ATE OCTOBER OF 2011 I HAD THE OPPORTUNIT Y TO TAKE A TRIP WITH FIVE FRIENDS TO NEW YORK CITY TO OCCUPY WALL S T R E E T. I T WA S A N A M A Z I N G A N D E Y E-O PE N I N G ADVENTURE. WE MET SO MANY SMART PEOPLE AND GOT TO SEE BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY ABOUT WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON AT ZUCOTTI PARK.
TO HELP SPREAD THE WORD I DECIDED TO MAKE A 2’ X 4’ WOODBLOCK. ABOUT 30 PRINTS WERE MADE WITH THE BLOCK AND WERE GIVEN T O T H O S E I N T E R E S T E D A L O N G T H E T R I P.
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P R OT E S T I N G I N T H E S U BWAY
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STANDING AT ZUCCOT TI PARK
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