Work: We Come Together/Together We Come,
Artist Book
Role: Art direction (design, layout, typesetting, paper selection, printing, saddle-stich binding)
Location: New York
Date: 2019
Details: We Come Together/Together We Come is an artist book inspired by George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language,” specifically his idea that “the present political chaos is connected to the decay of language.” The 2016 Republican Party platform is typeset on all left pages, and the 2008 Democratic Party platform is typeset on all right pages. By reading only the verso or only the recto pages, the reader can experience each discrete platform in full. However, when read in order (left, right, left, right), a third platform is created, one that is neither Republican nor Democratic, but a layered amalgam of both. The only reason that these “opposing” platforms can come together as one is because, from a linguistic standpoint, they are fundamentally alike: filled with the same stale images, vague promises, and dead metaphors. “The concrete melts into the abstract,” wrote Orwell. “Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together.”
Printed and bound into one signature at the Parsons Graphic Lab. Typeset in Sabon (1967) and Akzidenz-Grotesk (1898).
Artist Book
Role: Art direction (design, layout, typesetting, paper selection, printing, saddle-stich binding)
Location: New York
Date: 2019
Details: We Come Together/Together We Come is an artist book inspired by George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language,” specifically his idea that “the present political chaos is connected to the decay of language.” The 2016 Republican Party platform is typeset on all left pages, and the 2008 Democratic Party platform is typeset on all right pages. By reading only the verso or only the recto pages, the reader can experience each discrete platform in full. However, when read in order (left, right, left, right), a third platform is created, one that is neither Republican nor Democratic, but a layered amalgam of both. The only reason that these “opposing” platforms can come together as one is because, from a linguistic standpoint, they are fundamentally alike: filled with the same stale images, vague promises, and dead metaphors. “The concrete melts into the abstract,” wrote Orwell. “Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together.”
Printed and bound into one signature at the Parsons Graphic Lab. Typeset in Sabon (1967) and Akzidenz-Grotesk (1898).
