James Brook / Design: November 2024

In Our Lifetime: an anti-imperialist resource

Edited by Hussein Mitha

With contributions from Lola Olufemi, Mira Mattar, Hannah Proctor, Houria Bouteldja, Farah Saleh, Amirah M Silmi, Maya Uppal, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, and Sulaïman Majali

Soft cover | 210 x 148 mm | 64 pages | Printed by Gomer, Wales

This is a publication that I designed for Arika, a political arts organisation that supports connections between artistic production and social change. In Our Lifetime: an anti-imperialist resource was produced for Episode 11: To End the World As We Know It, five days of film, music, discussion and study at Tramway, Glasgow, 13-17 November 2024. The resource includes poetry, essays, questions, prompts, letters and works of anti-colonial imaginary and was edited by the artist and educator Hussein Mitha who I worked very closely with, along with Siobhan Carroll, the producer at Arika.

The design of the book was informed by the immediacy of the powerful content – I used typefaces that were present in the original manuscripts and employed a light touch to preserve the (sometimes idiosyncratic) formatting and layout of the contributors’ Word documents while creating a subtle sense of order and cohesiveness to the layout of the book. The editor had suggested using a design element, motif or imagery to lighten the text but, once the texts were in place, the ‘internal logic’ of the typographic system alongside controlled areas of white space generated a design where such interventions seemed unnecessary (though I did present an option that used a grey version of the angled black rectangle from the cover as a device to mark the opening of each section which wasn’t used).

The angled black rectangle on the cover is the same dimensions as the text block which is rotated by 1 degree to create a feeling of de-stabilisation that seemed fitting to the radical content of the book – the title appears as a block of text at the top of the rectangle suggesting connotations of protest posters or banners. This mood is further emphasised on the back cover which utilises the same black rectangle, aligned to the text block with of the inside pages, with the rallying cry of ‘intifada, revolution!’ layered over it like graffiti on a wall. I initially thought that this slogan would also appear on the front cover but the editor preferred the slogan on the back cover only – on reflection, the starkness of the black rectangle with text at the top only is a far more powerful image: a tombstone for imperialism.

The publication had a very tight production schedule but we were able to turn it around very quickly and even managed to get it to the printers ahead of schedule! The printers of the book, the excellent Gomer in Wales, also pulled out all the stops to ensure that the book arrived in time for the event.

Pat Fisher: Paintings 2018–2024

Photography by Keith Hunter

Self cover booklet | 240 x 130 mm | 12 pages | Printed offset by Gomer Print, Wales, on 150 gsm Arctic Matt

Pat Fisher is a curator and artist and a former Director at Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Gallery, 2004-2016. This is a modest publication that I designed with Pat which records three exhibitions of her paintings in 2024: at Stallanbrand, Glasgow; the Window, Perth; and at Milchstrasse 4, Munich. I went to see Pat’s exhibition at Stallanbrand and fell in love with these quietly considered paintings so I was delighted to work with her on this project.

The artist had a very clear idea of how her works should be presented and came to me with a small exhibition catalogue of Cy Twombly’s work, published by Gagosian Gallery, to use as a model. The size and general layout is based on that catalogue though with a different typographic approach using Gill Sans Nova, a typeface designed by Monotype Studio designer George Ryan, derived from the original work of the influential British artist Eric Gill (1882-1940). I really like this update to Gill Sans, particularly the elegant non-aligning figures which I used for the catalogue captions but not for the cover titling where standard figures worked better with the arrangement of type.

The typography on the front and back cover is printed in a blue that was sampled from one of the paintings. Like the inside pages, the cover is dominated by white space but, with the coloured typography, I was aiming to create a subtle difference to the inside pages, where the typography is printed in black. I experimented with various colours, including a green similar to the one used on the Cy Twombly catalogue, but, in the end, Pat and I decided that this blue was the strongest colour enabling the text to be comfortably read while also making a connection to the colour palette of the work inside.

The paintings are all centred on the page, two to a page, with captions underneath, also centred. The captions are set over three lines with the title of the painting in bold. As with the cover, there is a lot of white space, giving the paintings room to breathe. For consistency, I removed the backgrounds from the images and added a uniform drop shadow so that the paintings feel like they are all inhabiting the same (virtual) space. The artist and I adjusted the size of the images on the page so that the paintings were proportionally sized in relation to each each other.

It was interesting to hear the artist’s thoughts about paper: we looked at several samples until we found one that felt right – in Pat’s words, one that felt like a ‘fine’ paper. The publication was printed by Gomer in Wales on Arctic Matt, a coated paper with a soft, white matt surface with a natural feel and a slight warmth. Initially, I had suggested a bulkier paper, around 170 gsm, but the artist wanted a lighter paper (and possibly one even lighter than the 150 gsm we eventually selected). In the end, I am happy that we chose the weight that we did as I think that with a lighter paper, we may have had see-through and I think that would have been detrimental to the images on the page of Pat’s beautiful paintings.

Pat Fisher: James Brook is a sensitive and innovative designer. He listens to the client carefully, aiming to enhance the initial vision with his knowledge and skill. The planning process is detailed and generous, James gives his time and ideas readily and quickly follows up with drafts. He is genuinely and creatively engaged in the projects and process and this is reflected in the finished product where is sharp eye and attention to detail is evident, even in the modest publication he designed for me recently. I fully recommend him with no hesitation.