0.08 Imprints is an independent publisher that strives to produce photobooks and zines, they often publish work that consists of working with practitioners who use the camera as an investigative tool that narrates relationships, people and place whilst still being both approachable and aesthetically conscious.
Over the past twelve months I have been working for 0.08 Imprints as an intern. I have been fortunate enough to work as a designer assisting the team to produce a photobook of Lucy Evans' 'Dry Society'.
Evans’ work depicts washing lines and laundry items in unexpected locations as to make a comment on class, feminism and sustainability.
When producing this work in the back of my mind I was constantly thinking about Matt Johnston's 'Photobooks &' through the way that Johnston discusses the eight acts of photobook reading. If this book is to be produced and sold for a consumer then I had to be thinking about making this work approachable and engaging to a reader who isn't familiar with the work.
Johnston suggests that there is an infinite way in which people read photobooks and I agree but in certain stages of producing a book I was thinking about the different acts upon which he has theoriesed.
Throughout the sequencing stage of the book I was thinking about a reader taking an inspectional and conceptual reading: for example the way that a spectator will at first connect with the work through forming a loose understanding before then connecting resonating with the values that are presented with in the work. If Evans had encoded connotations of feminist ideologies then I wanted the work to present this to an audience in an approachable yet interesting way.
I attempted to approach this via the fabrication of sequence by setting up an expectation and then disrupting it.
In order to do this I first had to set the scenes of the working class environments that Evans had captured. The idea of using a long shot image to present the scene sets up a form of expectation to a reader- this is a piece of work that comments on working class environments.
Before then zooming in closer and using the repetition of images of washing lines in a domestic environment to reinforce the ordinary- washing lines in a domestic setting on a bright day with wet clothes hanging off them to dry. Again setting up an expectation that now this work is a comment on working class environments and the daily house hold chore of washing laundry.
To then create contrast and juxtaposition Lucy and I discussed positioning the images of the laundry and washing lines in unexpected locations after the images of the more naturally positioned to introduce this disruption- as the sequence progresses the images get more unexpected and darker as to comment on the role of laundry and how Evans invites people to see domestic chores as a performance rather than a routine.
When the reader completes their initial reading of the sequence they are then greeted with the final statement:
Dry Society uses analogue photography in tandem with washing lines to explore several channels of social history.
Having this statement back, allows a reader to form their own initial reading in the first initial reader before then using Johnsons theory of reading, they are then invited to reread the sequence now knowing a small snippet of context.
Over all, book making and graphic design is a great passion of mine and I value the fact that I have a creative outlet where I can progress my skils.