AI summary
Doug is planning his next zine, CW-PUB-002: Interfaces of Refusal, which will explore the design language of refusal in technology, including errors such as 404 and Access Denied. He aims to highlight how machines can hinder our goals and how we often passively accept these refusals. The zine will be the second in a three-part series, following on from CW-PUB-001: Field Notes on Productive Friction.
…At a 1962 conference at the Museum of Modern Art, conservative art critic Hilton Kramer denounced Pop Art as “indistinguishable from advertising art” because “Pop Art does not tell us what it feels like to be living through the present moment of civilization. Its social effect is simply to reconcile us to a world of commodities, banalities and vulgarities.” But perhaps the content of graphic design is exactly that: an evocation of “what it feels like to be living through the present moment of civilization,” with all its “commodities, banalities and vulgarities.” How else can we discuss the content of a typeface or why the typography of a surfing magazine suddenly becomes relevant? Or how a series of made-up or ‘self-initiated’ posters—already a medium of dubious functionality— can end up on the wall of a major design museum? Work must be saying something, which is different than being about something.
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AI summary
Putting together a zine is harder than expected because everything must be correct before printing, unlike web publishing where mistakes can be fixed after the fact. The author notes their usual publishing flow includes a fixable "oh shit" moment, but printed matter offers no such safety net.
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AI summary
The note records that the author gathered resources on Are.na for their upcoming zine Field Notes on Productive Friction, which will be 40 A5 pages (roughly 6,000 words). They plan to create a mindmap of these and other found materials to aid in planning.
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