The clamor emanating from Studio On Fire’s second-floor press room sounds more like the querulous grinding of machine parts than the sophisticated white noise of a 21st-century design studio.īefore Gutenberg, manuscripts were either copied by hand or printed using wood blocks. His introduction of moveable type in 1440 and his development of a horizontal-bed wooden press a decade later set off a social revolution so earth-shaking as to dwarf the pretensions of our modern digital age. Scholars generally credit Johannes Gutenberg as the father of modern printing in the West. Chris Forsythe and Tori Bush, two of the studio’s eight employees (a number which includes Levitz), operate letterpresses whose essential design, with latter-day modifications in engineering and metallurgy, has remained virtually unchanged since the 15th century. And at this point, it’s design specifically for letterpress printing, sometimes retrofitting the process back into the design of something, so that the production becomes the design.”Īs the door gives way, his words drown in a roar of machinery. Levitz’s conception for Studio On Fire is simple: “It’s design work, letterpress printing, and our letterpress product line,” he says, laying his hand on the door to the press room. Because that’s what Studio On Fire is: a design studio parked on the fringes of Northeast Minneapolis, squirreled into one of the many refurbished warehouses that have collectively re-branded this blue-collar, industrial sector as an arts community. It’s September 2008, nearly two decades into the digital revolution (or more, depending on where you date its start), but the clamor emanating from Studio On Fire’s second-floor press room sounds more like the querulous grinding of machine parts than the sophisticated white noise of a 21st-century design studio. He’s got the untucked-shirt-over-jeans look goingwardrobe shorthand for art school grad, left-bank intellectual, design professional, self-made man, or all of the above. But unlike the Republican vice-presidential hopeful, Levitz isn’t aiming for conservative chic. THE PRINCIPAL OF STUDIO ON FIRE IS BEN LEVITZ, wiry and boyish with blunt-cut sandy hair and spectacles that, like Sarah Palin’s, stand out from his face.
0 kommentar(er)
