What do we think about when we contemplate our relationship with Carbon?
Carbon is the basis for all life on earth, and the harbinger of our demise — Jessica Traynor's hypnotic prose poem contemplates this element in its many forms, following a meteor’s flight, picking through WWII bombsites, visiting geodesic domes, seventeenth century laboratories, Plato’s cave, and pushing ever deeper below the earth’s crust in search of wild spirits, and the black lake at the heart of all things.
Inspired by the aesthetics of hand-typed scientific reports and woodtype printed protest posters, Jamie Murphy has interpreted the text by employing a new mono-spaced typeface developed specifically for this project in collaboration with type designer Bobby Tannam. In an effort to capture the materiality of the subject, evidence of carbon rich matter emerges throughout the book in the form of ink drawings made from car exhaust & chimney soot, Irish dulse & peat ash, charcoal, lampblack & candle smoke, graphite, coal & diamond dust.
Concept, design and letterpress printing by Jamie Murphy, assisted by Ellen Martin-Friel and Mikah Smillie. The type is six line Carbon Mono, a new woodletter designed for this book by Bobby Tannam, produced from end grain beech by Scott Cameron. Approx 80 books printed. Bindings by Roger Grech; 54 numbered copies on 200gsm Losiny handmade in goat & carbon painted paper over boards, housed in a solander box. 26 lettered copies on 200gsm Losiny handmade, bound in full (carbon altered) goat, accompanied by a second printing on dark graphite & diamond infused Losiny paper, along with a portfolio of extra printed pieces and a layer of the carbon materials used, presented in a cloth covered solander box.
