HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other coding languages tell browsers how to display web content and have decisively influenced how we use digital products. Following the Internet revolution, the purpose and use of print publications also shifted as they are increasingly becoming niched, valuable, collectable items.
One crucial aspect of HTML and CSS is that they are intermediate carriers since the actual consumption of visual web content happens on screens. So, changes in the code or software will impact only a part of the user experience, depending on the device used, its size, resolution, computation and connectivity capabilities. One of the best examples is the ubiquity of smartphones and their influence on how we connect, consume, and communicate.
On the other hand, a print artefact is both hardware and software combined. According to Ludovico (2012, p. 153), “the printed page is more than just a carrier for things to be shown on some display; it is also the display itself. Changing it consequently changes people’s experience, with all the (physical) habits, rituals and cultural conventions involved”.
For this “Methods of Iterating” brief, I’m exploring how tools for building websites and apps can be used to create printed material. Will the unique aspects of coding yield unique results compared to traditional graphics-based software? The responsiveness of digital products, for instance, clearly contrasts with the format-oriented approach of Graphic Design.
The theme for this exploration is the Aldeia Maracanã, an area in Rio de Janeiro occupied by Indigenous People from different ethnic groups, each with their language and culture. This subject has potentially interesting juxtapositions. The traditional tools of Graphic Design, dominated by Western culture and heavily influenced by Modernism and its search for universal aesthetics, are challenged by the format flexibility of digital products and by societal groups known for their diversity, oral tradition, and collective knowledge.
Ludovico (2012, pp. 155-156) advocates for hybrid publications that use the best qualities of print and digital. The outcome of this project is a website with 50 printable pages with the theme Aldeia Maracanã. One can expand on this process and create an online archive of text, translation, photos, paintings, chants and other artefacts that help preserve the culture of Indigenous People. The ability to print its items offers new ways to experience an online archive, combining material aspects of a physical collection and the accessibility and customisation of online products.
This written response is also a hybrid in many ways.*
Like the last iteration of my studio exploration, the user can interact with this page by editing the text and rearranging the order of paragraphs, but can only print it if the approval rate is high enough. This welcomes the reader to reflect on the relation between online and printed text. What makes a text suitable for each medium? Can any piece of writing benefit from user input? How does social media impact other forms of knowledge distribution?
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*See live version here and previous drafts here.
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Reference list
Ludovico, A. (2012) Post-digital print: the mutation of publishing since 1894. Eindhoven: Onomatopee.