June 28th, 2015 · Tags: Culture of work · Education · relearn · relearn-2015 · summer-school · Tools · Workshops + teaching · No Comments
Relearn is back for 2015! We’re very happy to see the summer school continue and morph into a new being again this year, with a new set of people taking care of the organization. Quick recap: OSP set up the first edition of Relearn in 2013. In 2014, Relearn was a jointed venture with all […]
January 12th, 2012 · Tags: Lay-out · LGM 2011 · Tools · Comments Off on Meaningful Transformations
A conversation with Tom Lechner We discovered the work of Tom Lechner at the Libre Graphics Meeting 2010 in Brussels. Tom has traveled from Portland, US to present Laidout, an amazing tool that he made to produce his own comic books and also to work on three dimensional mathematical objects. His software interests us for […]
January 2nd, 2012 · Tags: future · LGRU · Tools · Comments Off on In preparation: Research meeting Co-position
Over at the Libre Graphics Research Unit we are preparing a second ‘Research Meeting’ that will take place in Brussels from 22 to 25 February 2012. Developers, designers and theoreticians from all over Europe will gather to imagine future Libre Graphics tools together. The theme for this particular edition is Co-position, and we’ll speculate about […]
October 26th, 2011 · Tags: Design Samples · How-to · Libre Fonts · Printing + Publishing · Tools · Type · Comments Off on interpunctie samples all.pdf
From Thursday 20th to Sunday 23rd November OSP went to contemplate the Bolwerk archives landscape from the window of Frans Masereel Centrum. As part of Bolwerk‘s residency, we were invited to propose a reading of Bolwerk’s material inbetween its punctuation. Linked to our actual and future projects, this journey also presented itself as a good […]
April 29th, 2011 · Tags: Further reading · Thoughts + ideas · Tools · Comments Off on Spoon
“Go into the kitchen and open the first drawer you come to and the odds are you’ll find the wooden spoon that is used to stir soups and sauces. If this spoon is of a certain age you will see it no longer has its original shape. It has changed, as if a piece had […]
April 22nd, 2011 · Tags: LGM 2011 · Tools · Workshops + teaching · Comments Off on pre-LGM: famous people and digital patterns
We are busy preparing pre-LGM activities (6-9 May) and happy to report that it looks like an exciting weekend already. As a way to warm up for the Libre Graphics Meeting, StudioXX will host a Digital Pattern Making workshop, a celebrity draw-off and an exhibition. ginger coons is gathering a ‘jury’ of designers, illustrators and […]
December 9th, 2010 · Tags: Fontforge · Gimp · Inkscape · Tools · Workshops + teaching · Comments Off on Chaîne typo-graphique ouverte
Nous fêtons demain le premier cours Open Source de l’ERG. In September started a fisrt “arts numériques” open source course at the École de Recherche Graphique. Visit the course wiki. The students will be proud to present the first specimens of their pictures-fonts. And in exclusivity we will play with Pierre Marchand’s new friend Fonzie […]
November 14th, 2010 · Tags: books · In the pipeline · LGM 2010 · Printing + Publishing · Tools · Comments Off on from cage to pipeline
H E Y ! Libre Graphics Magazine #1 is out ! Bravo Ana, ginger, Ricardo + the whole team and participants. Follow the details about the production process and order soon your copy from their blog.
November 2nd, 2010 · Tags: Design philosopy · Discussion · Thoughts + ideas · Tools · 9 Comments
Dear Ubuntu, A few weeks ago I needed to re-install my computer. Using the convenient Startup Disk Creator, I prepared a USB-stick with a fresh version of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, rebooted the computer and clicked ‘install’. While the Ubuntu slide-show took my mind off the wait and the automatized installation process was taking place, […]
October 29th, 2010 · Tags: Map · Presentations · public appearance · Tools · Workshops + teaching · 1 Comment
Next week another delegation of OSP travels to Tel Aviv to present at the conference Open Code Versus Military Culture? Aspects in Israel Digital Culture organised by the Shenkar College for Engineering and Design. Following the talk, there will be a worksession at the Israeli Center for Digital Art. From the conference description: “The interest […]
October 10th, 2010 · Tags: Bugs · competition · Tools · 1 Comment
Packt-publishing, big on books about Open Source, now wants us to ‘Vote for our favorite Open Source Graphics Software to win‘. It is a clever campaign I guess: data about popular applications should be useful in deciding what books will sell. Packt gives away one proprietary e-reader to a random voter and I only hope […]
March 31st, 2010 · Tags: Libre Fonts · Tools · typography · Comments Off on Font Secrets Revealed
You’re welcome for a series of talks by Dave Crossland
January 28th, 2010 · Tags: books · Retrospective Reading · Tools · Comments Off on Tools for conviviality
In the train back from Stuttgart, I read Tools for Conviviality, a pamphlet by social philosopher Ivan Ilich (1973). A ‘convivial society’, he argues, is a society in which everyone can act autonomously, and this can be achieved through the design and use of ‘convivial tools’: People feel joy, as opposed to mere pleasure, to […]
November 13th, 2009 · Tags: Further reading · ideas · Tools · Comments Off on A postcard from Amsterdam
Alessandro Ludivico proudly presents the latest issue of Neural with OSP-designed ad for By Data We Mean At a conference in Amsterdam, the Ippolita collective proposes us to build (and use?) convivial tools, a method for users that ‘neither want to rule nor to be ruled by the Society of the Query’: Detect and locate […]
October 2nd, 2009 · Tags: Not-Courier sans · Tools · Comments Off on Thank You PoDoFo
When budget is limited and time is short: PoDoFo tiling + wallpaper glue + NotCourierSans to the rescue! Clementine mounts the Constant Verlag colophon for its launch last night in 17 Rue de la Senne
August 26th, 2009 · Tags: Free Software Community · History · Tools · Comments Off on We will get to know the machine and we will understand
Before starting a fresh new OSP-season, first a post long due: This conversation with Juliane de Moerlooze was recorded March 2009 in the context of Female Icons, a project by De Geuzen but I think OSP-readers might like to read it as well? “when you hear people talk about women having more sense for the […]
June 29th, 2009 · Tags: context · LaTex · Tools · Comments Off on Pelgrimage to Pragma
Designing with TeX: episode IV Today we drove up North to the headquarters of Pragma in Hasselt (NL), La Place from where ConTeXt, a document markup language and document preparation system based on TeX, is being developed. The goal of the journey was to resolve some of the issues we encounter while designing a multi […]
June 27th, 2009 · Tags: Colors · Printing + Publishing · Tools · 1 Comment
When we began to think about how to establish a more rich and warm collaboration with printers after the cold alerts we experienced during OSP production, Georges Charlier’s appetite for research and openness to exotic solutions reappeared in Pierre’s mind. And since we are preparing some new books, it was time for an update on […]
June 4th, 2009 · Tags: Scribus · Tools · Comments Off on Future Farmers Free soil
A journey through the history and currents of free education, counter-institutional movements and the economy of information in Silicon Valley + beyond. Free Soil presents a bus tour, exhibition, outdoor film/video festival & on-site exchange in conjunction with the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge in San Jose, California. This tour […]
April 20th, 2009 · Tags: Conference · LaTex · Printing + Publishing · Tools · 1 Comment
(forwarded from the research programme Communication in a digital age, Rotterdam) PRINT/PIXEL International conference on the shifting relation between online and print publishing Tuesday-Wednesday 12-13 May 2009 | 12-17:00 (public sessions), 20-22:00 (professional sessions) The conference investigates the shifting relationship between online and print publishing. Both can no longer be separated, but complement each other. […]
March 18th, 2009 · Tags: Culture of work · Design philosopy · DIN · Inkscape · Libre Fonts · Map · Tools · Type · 5 Comments
As a side effect of the BPI/cinéma du réel festival, OSP has been asked to “perform” the program map in full scale in the Centre Georges Pompidou main hall, where the festival occurs. The map is a derivative from the printed one, folded into the brochure. It networks the festival selected movies and the subjective […]
February 18th, 2009 · Tags: context · In the pipeline · LaTex · Tools · Under development · 2 Comments
Designing with TeX: episode II “Users only need to learn a few easy-to-understand commands that specify the logical structure of a document“. If only we had sooner understood that user here is writer, not designer, we might have given up earlier. The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2 goes on to explain: “They almost never […]
February 12th, 2009 · Tags: Contribute! · History · Thoughts + ideas · Tools · Usability links · Comments Off on Call for participation: Useless Tools
(Call forwarded from Isabelle Massu) + + + + + + + + + + + + Museums narrate the history of man’s evolution through the display of tools (silex, knife, jar, etc.). In contrast, we are looking for useless tools. This call will result in a vitrine of objects titled ‘Object Inutile’ to be […]
January 25th, 2009 · Tags: DIN · Standards + Formats · Tools · Workshops + teaching · Comments Off on Edit: Norms, formats and supports
5 to 7 March, Bordeaux We’re preparing a journey to Bordeaux, France where OSP will contribute to the conference Edit: Norms, formats and supports with a workshop and a lecture. From the conference description: “Signs and pictograms which organize the flow of movement in cities and towns according to graphic “pie charts” and other diagrams, […]
January 23rd, 2009 · Tags: Retrospective Reading · Thoughts + ideas · Tools · Comments Off on Unimaginable tools
“Only rarely, if indeed ever, are a tool and an altogether original job it is to do, invented together. Tools as symbols, however, invite their imaginative displacements into other than their original contexts. In their new frames of reference, that is, as new symbols in an already established imaginative calculus, they may themselves be transformed, […]
November 6th, 2008 · Tags: Cooking · Handmade · Printing + Publishing · Recipe · Teaching · Tools · Type · Comments Off on The most useful book
Nous sommes heureux de vous inviter à la présentation du livre collectif : – – – – – – – – – – – – – Vomit’ can ich i’neun dî’neun? en quoi puis-je vous etre utile? – – – – – – – – – – – – – qui accompagne l’exposition – – […]
October 26th, 2008 · Tags: Inkscape · Scripting · SVG · Tools · 1 Comment
Inkboard is an Inkscape extension that allows remote collaboration over the network. In inkscape-devel, there’s a thread where people get all excited over it, and manage to bring down a server as a result 🙂 It’s hard not to get overexcited over tools that have collaboration built into them. They give rise to book covers […]
October 22nd, 2008 · Tags: History · Inkscape · SVG · Tools · 1 Comment
The OSP’s have gathered around their respective working tables in Brussels and Barcelona, to prepare Software History Mapping Night, tonight from 20:30 – 22:00 (GMT+1). For this occasion, Nicolas has created a rudimentary, quick, lo-tech collaborative mapping tool: http://www.ospublish.constantvzw.org/map http://www.ospublish.constantvzw.org/map/sandbox (crazy layers!)*
October 13th, 2008 · Tags: Digital drawing · History · Tools · 1 Comment
Wednesday 22 October 20:30-22:00 In a first attempt to draw a collaborative map of the many different tools that together define the practice of digital design, OSP attempts to recollect facts and anecdotes gathered over the last few years. At Software history mapping night we’ll gather around the table to start a visual cartography of […]
October 7th, 2008 · Tags: History · Tools · Type · 1 Comment
For everyone (like me) who keeps re-reading the 1992 edition of Robin Kinross’ Modern Typography: an essay in critical history… his revised edition (published in 2004) ends in an interestingly different way*: “The phrase ‘democratization of typography’ has become common, referring to the wide availability of the tools of production for type and typographic design. […]
September 17th, 2008 · Tags: Design philosopy · Reading list · Tools · Comments Off on Has re-design replaced revolution?
Philosopher of science, Bruno Latour, opened the recent Networks of Design conference with a keynote address: A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design. In his lecture, Latour linked the growing importance of design with his idea that “matters of fact” have become “matters of concern“.