INSTANT Publication Workshop

Mark Pawson

The assembled group (a mixture of MA students, past and present, artists and children) were shown an eclectic range of Mark Pawson publications and badges which were made from newsprint, envelopes, found ephemera, fabric and fashion posters, covering a diversity of subjects - plugs, household bills, weather conditions, Japanese fashion etc etc. These designs were printed, repeated, and printed into patterns which were imaginative and highly original.

Mark uses a range of techniques including photocopying, silkscreen printing,  rubber stamping and repetitive haiku-dic style typography to elevate the simplistic pamphlet, leaflet and 'zine' to iconic book status. He also produces packaged badges combining silkscreen print again with found imagery, fabric and kitch logo design. 

Embarking on this workshop at Spike, I had imagined we too would make use of photocopiers, rubber stamps, logos, type, random imagery etc.to make exciting artwork which could be used for publication and we did create our own books, using a range of papers which were folded and bound by stapling and stitching techniques, but these were empty. Unfortunately, here there were no rubber stamps, photocopiers and logos; with our resulting blank paged books having value, but disappointing me overall as I had already been shown most of these book making techniques during my MA at UWE. 

In spite of this, Mark had made and shown us some ingenious book and badge designs and listening to an artist who was passionate about his creations using 'random stuff' collected from the minutae of daily life was imaginative and inspiring.

Mark Pawson
Spike Island
August 2016