Description

Given that we conceived the ‘meta’ themes of mind, soul and body to drive the content of Ligature Journal back when we started dreaming of this magazine, it might seem a little odd for it to take us until this, the sixth issue, to have a body issue focusing on touch in design. All we can say is that the time wasn’t quite right—until now. So metaphorically warm up your hands, and let us welcome you to the ‘Touch’ issue of Ligature Journal.

As designers, we have an interesting and varied relationship with touch, and this is certainly reflected in the diversity of responses to our theme from our contributors. Jodie Richards writes passionately of the responsibility of communication designers to be mindful of how our work reaches out and touches others, and to consider how invited, or not, that touch is. Illustrator and painter Annette Lodge discusses the importance of touch within her art practice, particu­larly in relation to her most recent exhibition. On the other hand, designer and Head of Communications DIA, Jane Connory, found that one of the most striking aspects of her visit to the 2017 Venice Biennale was the ubiquity of admonishments not to touch the art. Designer and educator Ruth Kirkland reflects on her favour­ite design writer, Kenya Hara, and how the haptic experience can play a signifi­cant role in design.

Once again, we have prevailed on a range of designers to answer our Question, we have found an exciting emerging designer, and stumbled across a pair of unexpectedly invisible designers who developed a product that it almost impossible not to touch. And we are excited to introduce a new regular section that features work produced by designers as part of their tertiary studies—including a first look at an interactive Masters project which aims to use the power of touch to help people living with dementia, the AHA.

Our cover is something new and special. We printed it in the Tiliqua Press offices ourselves—internal pages on our inkjet printer (a bit of a struggle), and the outer covers on our letterpress, a Swiss FAG40 proofing press, using our own metal type (which was just plain dirty fun).

A smaller team of talented interns, this time graduates from Billy Blue and Shillington, worked on this issue than usual—if ‘usual’ describes what we do here?—but we feel this has been no hindrance to the end result. We can say we were touched by the energy and commitment shown by each one of the talented people involved, thank you!

Note, there a six colour options for the cover. Choose your preferred colour, or you can let us choose for an added surprise.

Featuring:

Jodie Richards, Ruth Kirkland, Annette Lodge, Jane Connory, Eliza McAlister, Andrew Barnum, John Lucas, Elin Matilda Andersson, Lisa Molloy, Stefan Lie, Lissa Barnum, Steve Woods, Arthur Koutoulas, Lotus Daddo and Esther Van Rosmalen.

Specifications:

88 pages
Astrobrights and Pacesetter from Spicers Paper
4C process, inkjet and letterpress
Print managed by SEED Print Group

About the Journal:

Ligature Journal is a title owned by Tiliqua Press. It has been set up to provide real world experience opportunities for communication design students and recent graduates. For each issue interns find and/or create all the content. They design, lay out, create imagery (both illustration and photography) as needed and take the publication through production process.

If you haven’t already visited the Ligature Journal website you can see more spreads here.