Met the lovely Simon Barraclough for a coffee and a chat yesterday morning. I've been so busy lately that I haven't made it out to all the events I've wanted to, one of which was the launch of Simon's new pamphlet, Bonjour Tetris.
Aside from the fact that this may be the best ever name for a published volume of poetry, the physical object is itself a thing of marvellous beauty. Though I'm a staunch fan of Barraclough, you'll have to buy the pamphlet (or his excellent first collection, Los Alamos Mon Amour) and judge his poems for yourself.
Given that I work in academia as well as in print media, I get rather cross when I read/hear the phrase, 'print is dead'. Take all the hype over the iPad. I got to play about with one at work a few days ago and it's pretty and nice, but ultimately useless. This is classic advertising: create a problem where previously none existed in order to solve said problem with a brilliantly marketed and totally superfluous gadget. Why do people need printed books/magazines, so the naysayers cry, when they can carry around hundreds of them on an iPad.
1 comment:
Ah so true! Long live the print edition of newspapers.. Breakfast is just not the same without it..
But you are also oh so right about the beauty of packaging, something you simply cannot recreate in digital format. And I say this even if I do love digital design.
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