Written response
This project investigated how tools and process conditions generate unintended outcomes in graphic design, and how such outcomes can be examined through rigorous, systematic and sustained practical inquiry. Week one examined Wade Guyton’s Untitled 2020–21 and Wolfgang Weingart’s Typographic Process, then recreated Weingart’s NR 5 in Affinity. The software’s negative-space logic produced minor deviations, and printing shifted white to grey-green and black to dark green. Controlled tests with different printers, colour modes/transparency and papers confirmed that these variables affected results, establishing the project’s central concern: the unpredictable agency of tools. This iterative replication and variation aligns with procedural exercises (Queneau, 1998), where constrained repetition exposes difference rather than mere copying.
Week two, drawing on ‘The Magic is in the Handling’ (Bolt, 2019), examined inkjet printing as material handling. The printer’s minute syringes resemble screen-printing logic. A replication of Daniel Eatock’s Felt-tip print controlled time, pressure and material across seven papers, varied pressures and dwell times from 30 seconds to 72 hours; both pressure and time affected outcomes to differing degrees. This stage shifted attention from visual result to rule-bound process, resonating with Conditional Design’s emphasis on conditions and instructions (Maurer et al. 2013) and with ad hoc improvisation within systems (Jencks and Silver 2013).
Week three focused on Xavier Antin’s Printing at Home. Antin’s deliberate sabotage of printers prompted a methodological shift: instead of observing tool effects, I intentionally disrupted printing to interrogate standard workflows. Three experiments were conducted:
- (1) three printers printed the same image on different papers under a unified process;
- (2) one printer used different inks and papers;
- (3) one image was separated into four colour layers and printed with different cartridges on the same paper.
Each involved random ‘destruction’ of ink, cartridge or nozzle—coffee as ink, apple or lemon coatings, and potato stamps. Contrary to expectation, controlled variables still produced unforeseen results.
Experiment 1 showed no anticipated smudging, owing to quick-drying ink and smooth paper, with only peripheral droplets.
Experiment 2 showed that potato starch affected printing, but drying potatoes transferred water and starch, altering paper humidity and hardness more than smoothness; later starch absorbed water and drew ink into wet paper, causing smudging.
Experiment 3 showed complete disruption of the printer’s workflow in its middle and late stages.
These findings generated further questions about humidity and ink adhesion, stamp pressure and mechanical misplacement, and the precise point of process breakdown. Research into Antin revealed that his Industrial Revolution imagery deliberately links printer technology to labour displacement, Luddite machine-breaking and the subversion of standardised products. This parallel between intentional sabotage and historical resistance to automation became the project’s conceptual pillar, connecting week one’s tool-generated unpredictability, week two’s handling-based control tests and week three’s disruptive printing.
Ultimately, the project demonstrates that critical research in graphic design can be developed through rigorous, systematic and sustained exploration of materials, rules, errors and historical contexts (Bolt, 2019).
Reference List
Bolt, B. (2019) ‘The Magic is in the Handling’, in Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry.
Eatock, D. (n.d.) Rolling Pin Paintings and Felt-Tip Prints.
Jencks, C. and Silver, N. (2013) Adhocism: The Case for Improvisation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Maurer, L., Paulus, E., Puckey, J. and Wouters, R. (2013) ‘Conditional Design Manifesto’, in Conditional Design Workbook. Amsterdam: Valiz.
Queneau, R. (1998) Exercises in Style. Translated by Barbara Wright. New York: New Directions.
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