Printed Matter is pleased to announce the publication of Name, Thing, Thing : A Primer in Parallel Typographies, an ambitious project by designer and publisher Gerardo Madera. Join us for a book release party on May 12, 5-7pm.

Name, Thing, Thing is a compilation of thoughts, quotations, fragments, on and around typographic intervention as resistance against the colonial embeds of typographic tradition—a pursuit analogous to strategies long used by people of color to subvert or reclaim defined historical narratives and traditions as a means of survival. Cultural remapping, hybrid and subversive form-making and discursive histories are tactics explored in Name, Thing, Thing to locate potential channels of articulation in decolonizing typography.

Part One (Letters Are Things), is a performative text drawing from numerous theoretical sources across design criticism and cultural history. Progressing through numbered and lettered sections, the essay attempts to cobble together what a methodology that actively combats typography’s inherent homogenization of language and form might look like. Part Two (Things) borrows images from various books, artifacts, artworks, etc. to locate an expressive language, one often incorporating physical gesture—posture, gesticulation, facial expression—in the space around language, symbol and relic. Part Three (Things Cited) attributes the images and text.

Available for purchase here

Offset printed - Sewn bound - Hardcover with foil stamp - Black & white - 4x6 inches - 176 p - Edition of 1,000 copies

Please write to Keith@printedmatter.org for press inquiries, and for information about wholesaling this title.

Name, Thing, Thing was selected as one of four to be published as part of the Emerging Artists Publication Series, an open call for proposals administered by Printed Matter and generously supported to by Jerome Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.