This Saturday 20 October we are taking part in the book and zine fair at Spike Island, Bristol – not because we publish experimental literature (we don’t), but because of some Bristol connections (starting with Norman Potter) and because of an exhibition there of pieces designed and printed Desmond Jeffery. Sally Jeffery wrote a wonderful account of this work for Typography papers 8. We will be selling copies of this and other related books at the fair.

Our re-issue of two novels by E.C. Large, Sugar in the air and Asleep in the afternoon, and publication of a companion work, God’s amateur, prompted this piece in Lodown (no. 74), the magazine of ‘Populärkultur und Bewegungskunst’, published from Berlin. The introduction and email interviews are by Renko Heuer.

When we were planning to publish music CDs, I tried to keep in mind that (since all the decisions were in our hands) it was a chance to think freshly and not – or not necessarily – use the reigning model of a plastic jewel case with printed ‘inlay’ sheet and booklet. I thought it would be good to try to do without plastic. It might cost a bit more money, but at least we could make a nice thing: more friendly than the jewel-case model, and perhaps more economic-elegant in its materials. This seemed important in the light of the burning question of ‘why make CDs anyway, why not just issue sound files for downloading?’ If you offer a pleasant and desirable thing, with material qualities that can never be downloaded, then it can be worth the effort and the cost of still publishing physical objects. The same set of thoughts applies, of course, to printed books and e-books.

Last December, Michel Aphesbero and Thomas Boutoux came to London to interview Robin Kinross, for the rosab.net web-magazine, made at the École des beaux-arts de Bordeaux. The interview lasts for 51 minutes and is slow stuff, but has things not told in public before. But first you have to find it: wait for the page to load, then zoom out – a lot!, then scroll to the left and you will see ‘A studio visit to Robin Kinross in London’.

Idea magazine is pleasantly print-fixed: none of the words it publishes are put online, so anyone wanting a taste of it simply has to go out and find a copy. The current issue, no. 341, has an article that refers to Hyphen Press and its efforts. This essay, ‘Subterranean modernism’ by Randy Nakamura and Ian Lynam, is perhaps the first published piece by unconnected observers to address ideas that we’ve been busy with for now 30 years. This is very pleasing.[1]

An exhibition of the work of the English printer Desmond Jeffery opens at the St Bride Library in London tonight. This is the first chance for the public to see something of his production.

Next month Hyphen Press Music is publishing its first CD: Bach arranging and arranged by The Bach Players. In this conversation Nicolette Moonen, the artistic director of the group, talks about the background to the recording.

This spring What is a designer has been used as a reading text in a class on design at the University of Connecticut. As this email discussion reveals, the book has considerable power as a prompt for debate.

An exhibition of the work of the Werkplaats Typografie (Arnhem) will open at the end of June at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, running through to September. To coincide with this, a book is being made: In alphabetical order, edited by ex-Werkplaats participant Stuart Bailey. Among its contents are texts by Anthony Froshaug, Norman Potter, Robin Kinross, Melle Hammer and Paul Elliman – which represent a lineage of ideas and approaches that inform this kind of workshop education. The publisher is NAi Uitgevers in Rotterdam.

Norman Potter, the book’s author, died in November 1995, aged 72. Although the third edition of What is a designer went out of print last year, his book lives on. Spanish and Danish publishers are now embarking on translations. This has meant a revision and updating of the English text: a fourth English-language edition is under consideration.