The longest short conversation I’ve ever had.
Here’s a link.
http://gum.co/space-kl-prologues
Thanks ;)
Tag: zine
Issue #48: S P A C E | Tanah Rata, ‘Experiential Intimacy’
The lead story is a poem, this time.
With graphic art, in the signature style of DK’s Dipika Kohli.
Here’s a link…
Thanks ;)
Issue #47: S P A C E | Kärsämäki, ‘The Field and the Horizon”
For this issue, DK’s creative director Dipika Kohli worked with A. Spaice and our newly budding creative team in Penang, Malaysia, in November, 2019.
Wrapping a year’s worth of reflections on the idea of growth, change, seedlings and new beginnings, it is a soft version of something that heretofore in our magazine has been rather geometric and angular, in style and attitude. Yet time and sharing, more and more, has opened us up a little more to ourselves, and to a very small section of our innermost hearts.
Quiet places
There, in the quietest places, something new is aloft. Seeds, seedlings and search for new grounds, fallow periods and more make their way into these pages, indirectly and perhaps abstractly, but with, we hope, a feeling that gives itself rather than asks you to pay attention to it.
Here’s a link:
http://gum.co/space-karsamaki-field
Thanks ;)
Issue #46: S P A C E | Huế, ‘An Art of the Moment’
The artists gathered for this co-created zine are four very curious people.
Art, natural patterns, and words intertwine in a collaboration between them.
The nature of art
Lee Moore Crawford, a floral designer and artist, once struck up a conversation about the Japanese art of ikebana when DK happened upon her arranging flowers at a coffee shop in Durham, NC, circa 2011. We never forgot it.
So when DK collaborated with another creative person who takes inspiration from nature to make the cover image of this issue (Dipika Kohli took the original photograph in Huế, then forwarded it to digital processing artist Nils don Sihvola in Finland), we wanted to ask Crawford what her feelings would be. Lots came of this interaction, including a short piece, ‘Bloom.’
To give the collection continuity, we then circled back to former culture editor Michael Bridgett, Jr., whose article, ‘Why I Art,’ opens yet another fresh perspective.
Order it here.
Thanks ;)
How to be part of New Chapters
Alright, it’s starting to get interesting now.
I did this before, with a clunky start, in 2014. Cojournaling.
That was fun, but also, that was a little bit underdeveloped. Naturally.
Who wants to overdevelop something that’s going to be a fail? Let me talk about agile publishing another time with you. For now, I’m just reporting that we are underway with a very new approach to creating new things. With people. In S P A C E.
Talk to me about digital publishing, the use of interactive tools, and even real time conversations online and on calls. And of course in real life. How could I ever pass that up? Yet… somehow… it’s happening. People don’t come to the events I suggest these days, even fewer than before, and it’s not because they don’t want to, I think. It’s… anxiety.
But that’s not my problem to solve. I’m making papers. I’m writing books. I’m sharing stories. I’m doing S P A C E. So I had to adjust.
Honesty
We are here, are we? At the point in the modern era where it’s too hard to even show up in real life. That’s definitely very depressing, in a big way, for me, because I love the improvisation of real life and the jam sessions associated with them that just, emerge, !*, on the spot. But I’ve decided something recently. I’m not going to let that self-stunting that other people may have get in the way of my moving forward and continuing to make. I just have to be a little more resourceful, now. Can’t just show up and see who’s there and make something on the spot, necessarily. (It does happen, but… yeah. Less often. And with less focus. Because everyone has a silly little computer in their pockets. I don’t have one, if you were wondering).
I write. Lately, more private writings, in more secluded sharing-spaces. Still discovering, still learning. Still at it. But, selectively, quietly. In S P A C E.
If you want to know more the best thing to do is subscribe.
More from there about how to get involved in the ‘Trust the Process’ adventure that is turning into quite the ride. I’m jazzed. Thanks to a small group of you, who have helped me learn how to do all the things I needed to do in order to understand this, it’s about to get really good now.
Here we go.
http://chuffed.org/project/spacethezine
Issue #40: S P A C E | Haapavesi, ‘Proprioception’
Writing a story in the north of Finland
This issue. Has taken me more than a year to wrap my heart around. It’s centered around a brief exchange that I had in a blustering white night all-night escapade that began as a foray to Haapavesi.
‘You go to peculiar places!’ said a writer in Oulu.
Despite my usual antisocial nature, I went. To… Haapavesi.
What I found is wrapped into a short story, which is the lead story for this collection. It, and the issue itself, are called ‘Proprioception.’
It’s a mashup of conversations from Finland over the summer in 2018, as well as more recently, in the cloud. Internet and real clouds… mixing and sharing and discovering and writing. Stories and poems. People give me so much to think about, and, I’m told, I do the same for them. What we discover when we make space to converse is, of course, the whole entire point of S P A C E. So I decided to share that very sweet, summer and lighthearted story today. Starry constellations and jazzy connections, but over karaoke, rounds in bars and ‘filled croissants’ at home.
And who is Soile? Well.
Let me think how to describe this… well, okay, it’s difficult.
Some things are for sharing.
Some things are for folding into art, and publishing, as zines.
Those who are used to my writing and creative nonfiction will not be surprised, but it’s pretty much a combination of three people. Soile… Whom I met on the bus, whom I met at a bar, and whom I met at somewhere I can’t say because this is a public post and not one of the protected ones. [Long stories deleted]
Order this issue of S P A C E
Today’s release has a bunch.
- New graphics.
- A new short story.
- Two poems including ‘Step a little closer,’ from 2014, which I wrote about the work of art, mostly, in a collaboration with M.
18 Oct | S P A C E Phnom Penh, ‘Miniparty’
Evening meet up for those interested in writing, design, editing and self-publishing. I’ll share the zines set in Phnom Penh:
- ‘Angle of Incidence’
- ‘Angle of Reflection’
- ‘Angle of Refraction.’
More about our zines and work in Cambodia 2014-2019, is here.
First four guests to register will get a printed copy of one of the zines from our S P A C E collection.
Be a part of it
DK has hosted parties like S P A C E in Phnom Penh before, bringing a magic moment into shape.
There was also ‘Math & Jazz’ at Raffles’ Elephant Bar, plus a series of eight ‘Rooftop Philosophy in Phnom Penh’ events along with the first-ever ‘N’, our ‘theater of now’ big blind date party that you can read more about here. Don’t miss this chance ot catch DK on a short hop through Cambodia en route to Penang, Kuala Lumpur, and maybe further afield.
Book to register
Limited seats. (Just six).
Advance bookings only. USD $16.
These are the details.
Book here.
Issue #39: S P A C E | Hà Nội, ‘Paper Funnel’
Every Tuesday since December’s start last year I’ve been sharing a new issue of our online magazine, S P A C E.
Today’s is S P A C E | Hà Nội, ‘Paper Funnel’.
Collected bits from the road, including wisdom from people I run into, like this 80-year-old man who wanted to talk about life and give me advice, on a tour last year in Melakka…
‘Don’t hurry through things, don’t disappear on people. Wait for the miracle. That’s a Grateful Dead song, “Looking for the Miracle”, but I edited it. Anyway, life advice? Be honest. With yourself, and with other people.’
–80 year-old guest of a guesthouse in Melaka, Malaysia, in response to DK’s question, ‘Do you have any life advice?’
For those who like travel writing, this is the issue to get.
I worked super hard on the lead story, a longform one called ‘Paper Funnel’.
Writing the story as I find it
As always, it’s still creative nonfiction, but it’s getting tighter, thanks to editorial input and proofreading and copywriting and just general advice from those who know my writing, and me, pretty damn well, by now.
The story inside will be published in October’s issue of Saathee Magazine, which is in Charlotte NC, and for whom I’ve been writing a monthly column about where I am, at the moment, on the spot.
Get everything in this edition of the printer-friendly S P A C E.
Download it, fold it, and sew it to make your own at home.
Order this issue of S P A C E
Protected: This post is for R.
Atelier S P A C E | Riga
Make a ‘zine’ with DK. Get to know more about the DIY-style of publishing a mini-magazine. Techniques, templates, samples and demonstrations are all part of this short, sweet creative workshop that has been traveling Southeast Asia and N. Europe since 2017.
Discover S P A C E, the conversations and the zines. Make, take, converse, and enjoy. Learn more about DK’s Atelier S P A C E and couture zines at instagram.
Workshop fee: €15, includes workshop materials + 1 coffee or tea.
Max 8.
The glory and quietness of DIY publishing
THIS WAS ORIGINALLY going to be a protected-page post. I didn’t want to get all corny about this whole DIY publishing thing. The scene. The strange feeling of having a thing that you want to share, but realizing that no one is readily around to hear it. And wondering if you are really on to a thing, or just think you are, but then, when you hit ‘print,’ it just all kind of falls, click, into place.
Movement
Getting to the point where you know how you’re going to approach the first pitch if you’re a seasoned baseball player, for example, takes time. Takes practice. Takes knowing the sweet spot on the bat and how your own personal stance is going to work out so you hit that, more of the time than less. No one bats 1000 but you can sure try to get better if you know yourself, what works, and how you have felt when the homerun gets hit.
But getting here and printing this stuff out makes me feel good: like it’s easy to go to bat, now. These changes have come with experience. They have more to do with the approach to taking to a nomadic life, kind of, on the road, and before that, the call of the road, than I had realized: the creative process is an adventure unto itself.
You go where the feeling takes you, you work it out, you develop the idea or set of ideas that feel rightest, and then, you make the cuts when the thing is starting to take shape. The ‘thing’ being the theme, the concept. It’s not about writing into sentences and paragraphs and making sure it’s all correct. It’s about feeling your way towards what is the mood of that place, space, time, mode, journey, and conversation set. There are no rules to this stuff. I wish that when people want to start talking to me about writing and art that they wouldn’t go right into, ‘What have you published?’ if they’re themselves authors, or, worse, ‘Have you been published?’ As if that means something. (Ask me if I’ve made f–ing good art, and then we’ll have a party.)
Shall I write down the conversations from those kinds of jam sessions, somewhere?
Was thinking of doing that.
Sharing
What I guess I am feeling as I look at the small set of things that I have brought to show and share here and there with people whom I have found through the internet or in moments, in real life, when the moment hits that I want to let someone read something I’ve written in the past (never current writing, that’s just… that’s difficult, since it’s still being worked out)… well… When I do get to see how people feel when they read, it’s nice. It makes me remember that writing isn’t writing for me: writing is for making a thing that I can share. And that the moment of sharing, that!, that’s the whole point of this journey for me, in S P A C E. Which is ticking along, more or less. Every week since early December 2018, there’s a 16-page PDF that goes out to a small set of people around the world who have been supportive from the start of this kind of project and intiative. Honestly, I don’t know why I won scholarships for studying in universities: the same money would be much better spent, I feel, backing me on these kinds of in-the-field reporting gigs (they’re not really gigs, they’re self-commissions, which is, I think, ‘art’, if, and only if, so iff, they land somewhere, there is resonance…. only then is it really art… and is art for art’s sake the point? I remember debating this when I was 24, in some fancy pants art school, and it was dumb, and not that much longer after that, I was packing up and driving away from the place towards the far, green pastures I knew would await me… somewhere… didn’t know at the time that was going to be, er, Ireland, but yeah…. )
Green pastures and the call of the horizon, the road in general, has always been a temptation for me. I can’t not go. I can’t not see, try, discover… sometimes when I find myself in places too long (Phnom Penh, for example, or Seattle), I get to the point where I wish I could just leave. I mean, leaving is nice, and I don’t have ‘jobs’ to attach to, or a ‘community’ that wants me to stick around. I used to wish I had those things, but I learned, for me, it’s much more interesting to keep it light. Keep ties to a minimum. I haven’t bought new clothes for a long time, and the last time was right before I had to meet some people I had not seen in five years, so my clothes definitely needed an update.
So what does this have to do with DIY publishing?
Nonlinear
Contrary to popular belief, I do not write with a conclusion to walk you towards. In fact, most of this is just ad lib. All of it is, in fact. I do not pre-write blog posts, though I think that might help you see that I am, in fact, a serious writer, but I save my best stuff for articles for magazines, like over here, and also for the e-mag S P A C E. Those are the pieces I work out to my best. I give my whole heart to them, which is part of why, also, I publish in so few places. I don’t want things to get out of hand and I don’t care if the world knows about me or just 4 people. It’s fine. The art is the point, and the journey towards making better art is even more important. To me. I love it when I find artists and talk to them about things like this, and we are serious and we are happy to have found one another being serious also where they are, and when we talk about these things, rarely does it go into the specifics of the art-making itself. Rather, we are dwelling on a different cloud, one of possibility and range, one that invites newness, openness, the thinking outside gravitational forces and the usual G. Where it gets interesting is where we can jam, creatively and intellectually and playfully and thoughtfully but also in that spirit of collegial co-creativeness, where all are equal and welcome to the table. I think what I am writing is the exact mood I hope that S P A C E invites people to join in, when they come to events or read our magazines.
It’s getting tighter, better. Clearer, sharper. And it’s also going to end. One day, I know I’ll get bored of it, and want to go on to another project. Not sure what, not sure where. But like Seattle and Phnom Penh, I know I’ll want to move forwards from here. No wistful backwards glances anymore, for me… there are too many things ahead, and too much more to look into. I can’t describe this very well right now because some people are listening to some kind of phone-vid and the music in the background is much less interesting than it was when I got started on this post. But yeah. Things are okay.
I like it that whenever I pass a little cafe place, they have the telly on, and it’s almost always… ice hockey.
What a change from Cambodia.
Hello Rīga
I KEEP DOING THIS. Showing up at major holidays, busting in with big plans and finding everything shut.
I was in Việt Nam at Tết, which means the whole place closes for a month, right?, then Thailand for Songkran just a minute ago, and in Latvia (said I’d go, didn’t I? and now here I am)—smack in time for… Easter.
Easter?
Easter.
Right. Europe. I’d forgotten. Owing to my six years and counting life in Southeast Asia, I suppose. Khmer New Year is high in my consciousness, of course it is, but I totally forgot… Easter. Flashbacks now, to Ireland. (Heya, M’OB). Still, even with things mostly feeling like they’re gonna close in five minutes, I feel pretty great about being here. Making the most of it. (HT: Mav)
HOLIDAY. As with the countries in Asia that I just went by to make issues of S P A C E (Bangkok, Hanoi) I’m encountering the usual stumbling blocks like highly-booked places on the internet especially at the weekends, the bizarre sensation that all restaurants are going to be closed for a few days and that means, if you’re not good at cooking (and I am certainly not), then you should stock up on something like crackers. I guess I still have the peanuts from the airplane. Uzbekistan. Well, well. A new feeling: cool weather. I have missed this. I saw some snow on the way. Snow ! Like the old days, in Michigan, playing outside with my little brother, getting called in by our parents, being asked how was it all, in a jolly way, by my Dad. Snow is part of me. Snow has been missing, these six years in Asia, except, wait, for that time in Nepal…
Yet I’m having a ball.
Positivity.
Nice, trying this.
For a change.
I’m going to credit Rīga. Hello, Rīga.
So nice, to finally meet you.
Soon, I’m going to start sharing this page with a handful of my internet friends from around here. When that happens, this form should work to get in touch.
But I’ll wait.
Until after, you know, the holidays.
Connect with DK
Protected: S P A C E | ‘しぶい’
S P A C E | Hanoi, ‘The Book of Red’
S P A C E | Singapore, ‘The Prospect of Beauty’
S P A C E | Singapore, ‘The Prospect of Beauty’ launches today in S P A C E, our crowdfunded, no-ads, member-supported weekly digital zine. Since we’re almost finished with our first 12-issue set, ‘A Philosophy of the Moment,’ it’s a good time to take a pause and try to grasp what the issues have been about. So far: new photography, new poetry, co-created works with people far and near, and the essay style that sometimes bleeds into metaphysical explorations that we like to do with people we know, and know well, in very small circles. It’s a story that really I could elaborate on, but only if the right moment came up, in the right place and time, and if I felt like it. That’s the mood, generally, with these small issues, too. They’re snapshots: captures, in a way, of the way it felt to be there, then, and with the people who happened to pass through our porous boxes of S P A C E. It’s fun, light, and sometimes revelatory. Because when we make space together, we learn more… about ourselves. Funny how that works. But yeah. I like it. I’ll take it. Next series, S P A C E | Spring, 2019, ‘The Book of New Things,’ is now scheduled and the list of what you can expect to see is at this crowdfunding page.
‘What is S P A C E, DK?’
I remember when this was getting going, and people were like, ‘But what IS it?’ And I was like, ‘Who the hell knows at the start of a thing what it’s about? You just have to get a ticket, book that thing, get on the bus, and get going.’
With the help of a stellar and carefully invited editorial and creative team, who co-created with me and through patient meanders into the ‘what it could be’ dimension as well as playful brainstorms in sketches, drafts, and various iterations of a thing that was beginning to become something, a great instance of conception took place. That’s just the creative process, isn’t it? Mucking around until you hit on the ‘a-ha.’ Then, you’re getting started.
Architect friends and I love to talk about this, the charette. Jazzy friends and I share a love for the jam session. Chess players call this ‘the big game.’ Travel companions I spend more time with than others also love the ‘getting lost in order to find center.’ The artist in me loves this exploration and discovery phase. The designer in me is ready to stop that once the concept gets settled, hit the ground, and build a box.
That box is S P A C E.
Inside the box
What’s inside is not something that I need to write down and tell people who don’t know me well. It’s just… not that kind of thing. It’s a party, it’s an invited space, it’s warm, and its goal is to welcome and include those who commit to making time and space to show up. This happens. In real life, in small magic moments, in shared online circles of conversations that move, and occasionally, on the spot, when it feels like becoming a thing. S P A C E is a jam session, in a big way, to design the aesthetic moment.
Not for everyone, of course.
But then, so what?
It is what it is. And that’s it.
‘The Prospect of Beauty’
It’s a very limited edition one, this time. Just for members of S P A C E, and our handful of collaborators in S P A C E, too. This edition was co-created by BOSS and Dipika Kohli. This issue is made with great care, and it’s dedicated to my father, Ravinder Kohli. It’s a long story, but we put it down in a poem, ‘Bluely,’ which I think says it all.
INSIDE. ‘Bluely’ puts that long-awaited moment of reconnexion into words better than my other written pieces, I feel. It’s a different way of saying the things that I have said to many people across timezones and who hold vastly different worldviews. In sum: doing what you have to do to be true to who you are. Long story. But… maybe there will be resonance. Maybe you will know what I mean, if you’ve ever had to do something very hard, so very hard that it made you turn away from the people you loved, especially the very person who most taught you to do what your heart called you to do, and who, knowingly or un-, had gone on to inspire you to become an artist. Who showed by example that you can’t sit still, because there’s way more out there to look at, explore, experience, and discover. It’s about that capacity to still stay open, despite gaining in years, to choose to still be curious, to continue to self-develop in order to keep learning new things. And to learn to love learning… And that the going and seeing is a big part of living. And that if you don’t… well.
A NEW ART. Despite the differences, in philosophy and style, and despite five years of stubborn silence, this happened… in Singapore, ‘The Prospect of Beauty.’ Special thanks, too, to the people whose paths we crossed quite by accident, whose counsel and friendly advice then informed the direction this very special issue of S P A C E then took. I would list them here but that might be a little awkward. Then again, people like being acknowledged, right? Maybe I’ll put them in the zine. People don’t know, sometimes, how much their words can really mean. And like Max Planck said, ‘When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.’
Get ‘The Prospect of Beauty’ when you join us this week in S P A C E.
14 March | ‘The Resistance’
Let’s talk about ‘The Resistance.’ A conversation party and zine reading. DK and friends in Hanoi invite you to be a part of this very limited-edition popup, S P A C E | Hanoi. Save the date for 14 March. Hosted by A. Spaice, who was last in Hanoi to make ‘N’ Hanoi: NARRATIVE.
For S P A C E | Hanoi, ‘The Resistance,’ taking place on 14 March, the time and place will be shared *only* with guests who RSVP. This helps us keep the conversations small in scale and limits it to those who are interested, only. We’re excited to be back in the city after such a long time, and to connect and reconnect, but even better, to interconnect, new and different others whose paths might not have crossed. As per usual: in S P A C E.
To RSVP, go here.
About DK
‘Art, at its best, is a conversation. One in which sender and receiver are locked in a timeless, wordless space, the quality of which only they can know:’ –Dipika Kohli, S P A C E | Palo Alto, 2014, in a conversation with the people who inspired S P A C E the zine.
As consultants, DK’s work is about discovering a strong concept of ‘why’ one does the work that one does. We use a lot of techniques to uncover that exact main idea, but the biggest tool we put into practice is dialogue. On a more personal note, DK’s founders and collaborators are generally curious, and interested in the art of conversation, so together we host events to gather in one moment those whose paths might not have otherwise crossed.
ART OF CONVERSATION. Central questions of identity, possibility, and search are the points from which DK’s inquiry takes its departure. Who are we becoming when we venture to places, and engage with cultures, the rules and shape of which we do not yet know? Dialogue is at the center of DK’s take on leveraging the best of the creative process, and it lies at the heart of all that we do. Whether we are in a client meeting or getting acquainted with a potential new friend, we are listening as best as we can. Through time, and sharing, there comes a moment when we arrive together at a conceptual ‘a-ha’. This is the breakthrough, and from here, the poetry of the connection becomes refined, nuanced, developed, and… more interesting.
DK was founded in 2004 in Seattle, WA, USA. Since that time, DK has worked with 100+ business owners of companies both large and small, as well as international development organizations. See what people say about working with DK.
DK
‘Anything is possible’
Dipika Kohli
Concepting
‘Let’s get started.’
TEDx | FQP | NPR | Review
Jas Plac
Operations Manager
A. Spaice
Experiential Design
instagram | twitter | facebook
Akira Morita
Innovation & Human Centered Design
‘It’s a practice.’
linkedin
‘S P A C E quests and designs itself, in the pursuit of more and better S P A C E’
About Atelier S P A C E
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Contributors, 2018-2019
BOSS
Michael Bridgett, Jr.
Zafar Imran
Alexis Jokela
Karin Malhotra
Quân Nguyễn
Aske Pedersen
Nils don Sihvola
Rastislav Somora
Kan Tomizawa
Reijo Valta
Veena Vera
Jānis Žguts
Learn about Atelier S P A C E popups in Vietnam, Latvia, the United States, and Finland.
‘Experience this’
Be a part of things to come
Are you ready to take part in something very new, and very much about exploring the ways to connect, and interconnect, new and different others? The best way to be part of DK is to support our work, first. To do that you can become a subscriber of S P A C E for USD $7/week, or make a donation, at our crowdfunding page. Or, show up in real life at any of our events. New projects ahead for 2020. KIT when you support this work to make more and better S P A C E.
Getting more and more serious
THIS MAGAZINE stuff is a lot of fun.
I’m enjoying searching around about typography design, lately, for example. My old typography consultant kind of ‘ghosted’ on me, which is a tough thing to accept but I have to move forward, so I’m looking up things on the internet now*. It’s so funny. The first vid I watch about typography and layout design looks like something he would have hated, because it’s all about really modern type, and I still remember asking, ‘Did you watch that movie Helvetica?’ and him going, flatly, ‘I hate Swiss type.’ Truthfully, though, I’m a teensy bit disappointed that we couldn’t carry forward working together on the zines that DK and our newer teams in S P A C E are making now, see our crowdfunding page for more about that, but I suppose that we are doing something kind of experimental and less formal but also more curious, and maybe that kind of ‘free jazz’-like stuff just isn’t his cup of tea. Or he got married. Or had a kid. Sometimes people disappear when either of these two events take place.
2002-now: New directions
SINCE I’M NOW making more and more stuff here at DK’s S P A C E with cool contributors from far and near, I’m realizing I better up my game with type, and graphic design. I’ve always been a fan of layout and was a staff designer for a while at a small community newsweekly in southwest Ireland with the very great and wonderful Mary O’Brien (heya Mary!), lucky me.
I got to do all kinds of things there in the way of figuring-it-out-as-you-go, but it was with a heavy heart that after we did a lot of issues together I decided to part ways from the new adventures that she and others were beginning, and are still going very strong with now, it seems, with what’s today called West Cork People. Fair play, lads.
It always makes me smile to see that it’s still going, as they say in West Cork, ‘from strength to strength.’ At least, it sure looks like it. Anyone who works in publishing, though, knows that we have to keep on keepin’ on. But what I’m learning from my friends in the field is that print is not dead.
Print, in fact, is more in demand than it was not long ago because, as Saathee Magazine Editor Samir Shukla, whom I’ve mentioned over here, put it, ‘it’s slower.’
After Cork, Seattle and Phnom Penh: S P A C E
BACK TO THE STORY. Leaving Ireland was a hard, hard choice. It was, after all, the land of the green hills and we were by the sea and the people were the best in the universe, and so many other things. But I felt like, at that time, after three years there, that it was time for me to move on. To where, I didn’t know, but I just knew it had to happen or I’d stagnate and goodness knows that is the worst thing ever for someone who constantly needs new input. So what I did was google around and see what might work out for a job. Like, a 9-5, not for a scruffy startup, this time, but an established publication. Which was fine, for a while. I did that. But it was too established. It didn’t start a blog the whole time I was there, and this was the early 2000s, and I realized, in my gut, that that wasn’t going to be ‘home’ for me, either. But I didn’t leave Seattle after the job at the newspaper (I’d gone to work on staff as an editor for a trade journal, a daily newspaper in Seattle, for two years. And after that, Akira Morita and I co-founded Design Kompany. Ran that together for a while, then sort of let things taper off and it organically switched into a design consulting boutique. Still does that sort of, sometimes, when the client is the right kind of client for DK (not for everyone). And yeah. This site isn’t a design studio’s site, anymore. It’s a magazine.)
Time, as always. To change it up.
DK are reinventing. Nothing new there.
Now, I’m back to publishing.
I’m so into this digital publishing stuff and geeking out again about layout and InDesign and Illustrator, but bringing other people’s voices to the space of publishing is my new work, here. So far, so good. Making it up as we go, but taking into account years of experience, too, in: design, collaboration, teamwork, sharing stories, conversation-hosting, salon making, and more stuff that some of you reading might be aware of that I’m not, because this is the stuff that is the thing that I do, and not what I analyze, but the point is to get better at everything so as to design and continue to create more and better S P A C E. That’s the work, then.
Right.
Let’s get to it.
*Note: In my work at DK 2004-2018, I got into a habit of delegating people for things. But now, it’s not client work I’m doing, it’s member-supported and member-inspired work, in S P A C E. Co-creating zines. One day, if a person in the graphic design fields joins us in this community, I’ll definitely have a lot of side gigs to share with them. That is, if we can grow it to that point. As is always the case in the beginning, it’s lean, nimble, and very DIY. I guess that’s the spirit of zinery. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to up the ante. Designers and typography whizzes are most welcome to join us in S P A C E. Though I must admit there’s a period of get-to-know-you that a lot of people don’t really stick around for, which means… Well.
Protected: S P A C E | The Book of New Things
The things to come
First editorial meeting today, for S P A C E | Phnom Penh, ‘Angle of Incidence.’
Discovering, sourcing, planning, sharing, connecting, interconnecting and framing. That’s what it is. To start.
Getting the team together. Organizing the pages without overthinking or over designing.
Leaving room for stuff to develop, other stuff to emerge. Being okay with things taking time. Being cool with letting go of what doesn’t fit, in the collection. Bricolage and collage being my ‘thing,’ along with relational art and the aesthetics around that, which academics write about (thank y0u) but which I, personally, design moments in which me, and hopefully others who also enjoy these things, can experience the ‘magic moment.’
AHEAD. New things, ahead. Grateful for the learning, and the reconsiderations of old things. For the replies to the notes I’ve been sending here and there around the world, and calls that I’m getting to make and enjoy relaxing into, too. For the responses to the poetry, for the notes and the critiques to the Winter 2018-9 collection’s editorial calendar. For the trust. For showing up. For the new rekindlings, deepening of some of what had begun, on my last trips here, and also, for the continued happening-upon new and different others that lands me here, time and time again, in S P A C E. Today was cool. It’s not over yet, but it’s been really neat. Booked tickets. Firmed up plans for the next stops. [To the wonderful urban planner, C, whom I just met today–hey! That was one hell of a conversation and very much needed. My questions again: how do we design and architect social spaces that ‘feel great’, but also, help people discover ways to think crticically and make choices that let them live better? What does a full city contain that an underdeveloped one doesn’t? What should be doing, as people who design spaces, and whose responsible for us ‘being happy’ and ‘living such as to become our best selves?’ Used to nerd about about these topics at walkable communities conferences Stateside and the time in Seattle interviewing loads and loads of engineers, city officials, and yeah, urban planners. The podcast I mentioned, is here. So yeah. Looks like Tuesdays are turning into S P A C E-y ones. Shall I make another thing? I can. I’m thinking maybe just two or three people now. It’s tiring, sometimes, to keep at it. But yeah. Sometimes you fall into the moment and it catches you by surprise. If you wanna talk about art, design, architecture, the shape of space, poetics, cities, and what gives the fabric of meaning to them, hey. I’m all in. Just hit me up.) To A and K: safe journeys. To A and R: SYS. And yeah. For anyone wondering what’s going on behind the scenes, here is where to join the conversation.]