Production Narrative

by J. Drucker

This sad looking little pamphlet was produced using the dot matrix printer I had for my first, IBM-clone computer. The typography makes the best use I could of three variations in font -- a condensed, an expanded, and a standard width. The layout was done by creating the print-outs and then pasting them up on sheets of paper taped to the windows with a grid of graph paper underneath. Primitive.

Critical Analysis

by J. Drucker

Design Features

typographic: Dot matrix print-out, in three variable widths.

graphical: The layout stresses the interconnected, intercut nature of the various texts. They move into and out of each other, like roadways or sightlines in a landscape.

Critical Discussion

The text of this pamphlet is far more compelling than the design or graphic effect. The language of an alienated subject, struggling to reconstitute any locus of self-hood in the distributed, shifting, decentered landscape is poignant and deadly accurate.

Bookscape

Agents

Johanna Drucker

type: initiating

role:
author
designer

nationality:
born: United States
active: United States
citizenship: United States

dates:
birth: 1952-05-30

Abacus

type: initiating

role:
publisher
printer

location: Elmwood, Connecticut

note: Bookscape was first published as Issue # 33, April 1, 1988, of Abacus. [J. Drucker]

Publication Information

edition type: editioned

publisher: Abacus, Potes and Poets Press Inc.

place: Elmwood, Connecticut

dates:
publication: 1988-00-00

edition size: Unknown, but not more than 100.

Measurements

horizontal: 8.5 inches closed

vertical: 11 inches closed

depth: .05 inches closed

Production Information

production means:
offset (local)

binding: other

substrate:
bookBlock: paper
endsheets: paper

media:
ink (local)

Appearance

format: pamphlet (AAT)

color: yes

Content

pagination: unpaginated

numbered?: numbered

signed?: unsigned

Colophon

Johanna Drucker recently received a Mellon Faculty Fellowship for 1988-89 to study avant-garde typography in the Fine Arts Department at Harvard University. Her most recent publications are Through Light and the Alphabet (1986) and Against Fiction (1984). She lives currently in Dallas, Texas, where she teaches at the University of Texas.