Marcroy Smith is celebrating eight years of People of Print, the fourth issue of his magazine and Posterzine 007. He's also hatching plans to launch an online marketplace. We caught up on news with the mercurial print nut…
What's special about Element 004, the latest issue of the magazine?
Element 004 has a fantastic line-up of letterpress artists and typographers, illustrators and creative events from around the world with a few other wonderful features thrown into the mix. The magazine body is printed using CMYK + Pantone 802U (neon green) throughout.
We used the brand new Stratos typeface by independent type foundry Production Type, which was designed by multi-award-winning designer James Lunn. The cover was designed by Apple Art Director, Jon Bland and was printed in two different colour-ways, each using five spot colours, printed at Pressision in Leeds. This issue also went out with Stack Magazines to all of their subscribers which was a lot of fun to see the reaction of the readers who don’t know what magazine they’re going to get.
What have been the most noteworthy changes in the contemporary printmaking scene since you began blogging about it in 2008?
Contemporary printmaking has grown in popularity since 2008. It’s really great to see print flourishing. Most universities offer screenprinting or letterpress as a process to illustration or design students. It’s really nice to see new technologies mixing with traditional methods of print. Contemporary printmaking work often uses digital as a starting point, it’s like a convergence of the old and the new.
PoP has seen you collaborate with some amazing print-makers and image-makers — what have been your most memorable moments?
We have worked with so many amazing artists, it’s really hard to pick out individual ones, however we have worked with Anthony Burrill on several occasions; he is extremely easy to work with and very professional. Heretic studio are insanely good. Kate Moross was a joy to work with on the latest issue of Posterzine. We are currently working with Alex Econs from Everpress for a their launch which will include around 50 awesome illustrators and designers. The list goes on…
Independent publishing: nirvana, narcotic or nut-job?
Maybe a little bit of all three… it’s a joy to have full control and it feels great when you get your little baby back from the printers. It’s is very addictive and takes over all of our lives during production, and I think you have to be a bit crazy to self-publish because it’s a lot of hard work and there are so many things to think about in terms of business. The work doesn’t just stop when you have gone to print, you have to sell the mags and think about the next issue. It’s all good fun though and we all really genuinely love what we do which makes it a million times easier.
What's on the horizon this year for PoP?
We have some exciting collaborations coming up with a number of well known brands. We have been working closely with East London Printmakers, which is probably the best printmaking facility I have seen in London and an excellent community of people. We are focusing on turning Department Store into a fully-fledged marketplace where vendors will have their own login area to edit and upload their items.
We are working on a membership package for People of Print which will have many benefits for those who are signed up. There is also a big push for more live events this year. We hosted our first series of talks at KK Outlet which went down extremely well, so we are working with Jaguar Shoes Collective to put on more live print workshops, fayres and talks in their Victoria Dalston venue amongst other places. Watch this space…
Find out more about People of Print
Buy Print Isn’d Dead ELEMENT 004
Posterzine: The monthly poster that’s also a magazine
