March 21, 2024

THURSDAY
7:00 PM EST

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave, 4th Floor, Room 411

Free Registration

KEYNOTE—
ASHLEY JAMES

Ashley James, Ph.D., is Associate Curator, Contemporary Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She is the curator of Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility (2023-24) and Off the Record (2021); and co-curator of The Hugo Boss Prize: Deana Lawson, Centropy (2021).

Prior to joining the Guggenheim, James served as Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she was the lead curator for the museum’s presentation of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (2018–19), organized Eric N. Mack: Lemme walk across the room (2019), and co-curated John Edmonds: A Sidelong Glance (2020-21).

James holds a Ph.D. from Yale University in English literature and African American studies.

Introduction by Kate Poe (BFA 2024), Niharika Yellamraju (MFA 2025), and Veridiana Monteiro Victorelli (MFA 2024), Boston University Graphic Design

March 22, 2024

FRIDAY
11:00 AM–1:00 PM

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave 4th Floor, Room 412

Free Registration

Limited to 15 participants

RISOGRAPH WORKSHOP WITH PANAYIOTIS (PAN) TERZIS

Panayiotis (Pan) Terzis is an artist, printer, and publisher based in NYC. He has been working with printmaking, drawing, painting, and publishing since 2005 and has been working with Risograph printing since 2010. He is the founder of the Riso press Mega Press.In 2015 Pan co-founded the RisoLAB, a Risograph studio based at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Since then he has directed the curriculum and graphic and conceptual identity of the space as manager and faculty member.

Assisted by Tico Chen, 2024 MFA Candidate in Graphic Design, Boston University

FRIDAY
12:00–2:00 PM

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave 4th Floor, Room 411

Free and Open to the Public

Pizza is free while supplies last

MULTIPLE SLIDES, MULTIPLE SLICES

Join us for multiple slices of pizza, multiple slides of mouth-watering books, and short 5-minute presentations from 20 amazing designers, book artists, educators, publishers, and book fair exhibitors. Presenters include Vera van de Syp, Pouya Ahmadi (Amalgam), Kristen Coogan (Design History Reader), Alex Luciano (Cowboy Press), Panayiotis (Pan) Terzis, Mary Yang (Radical Characters), Sean Suchara, Ulises, Chantal Zakari & Clara Davis (PULP magazine at MCI Concord), Chas Wagner (The Print Party), Jameson Johnson (Boston Art Review), Brockett Horne (People’s Graphic Design Archive) and more!

Hosted by Ash Wei, 2024 MFA Candidate in Graphic Design, Boston University. With introductions by MFA candidates Tico Chen, Alexina Federhen, Gazelle Farrokhi, Wenbin Huang, Rainbow Hui, Arjun Lakshmanan, Findo Santosa, and Niha Yellamraju; and BFA candidates Drew Demeterio, Wanjing Li, Campbell Morin, Sheryl Peng, Annika Pyo, Grace Snow, and Hailey Wang.

FRIDAY
2:00 PM—2:45 PM

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave 4th Floor, Room 412

Free Registration

Free and Open to the Public

RISOGRAPH MAINTENANCE WITH ROBERT BAXTER

Join this hands-on event with Robert Baxter and a Risograph machine to learn how you can properly maintain your Risograph to keep it happy, healthy, and printing.

Robert is an indie publisher of small books on arts research and practice and the shop manager and technician of a small community Riso studio in Seattle, WA.

Assisted by Caitlin Lu, 2025 MFA Candidate in Graphic Design, Boston University

FRIDAY
2:15 PM

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave 4th Floor, Room 411

Free and Open to the Public

AMALGAM ISSUE 4 LAUNCH

Amalgam publisher and designer Pouya Ahmadi will be in conversation with Mahan Moalemi, co-editor of Ethnofuturisms.

Amalgam is an ad hoc journal that explores the intersection of typography, language, and power.

“The fourth issue of Amalgam is, again, a brilliant example of how design and content can resolve themselves on the page to enhance rather than compete with each other.” —Jeremy Leslie

Introduction by Maidha Salman, 2025 MFA Candidate in Graphic Design, Boston University

FRIDAY
3:00 PM–5:00 PM

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave 4th Floor, Room 409

Free Registration

Limited to 15 participants

BOOKBINDING WORKSHOP WITH ESTHER K SMITH

Learn how to sew a book with Esther K Smith, author of How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-of-a-Kind Book!

Esther will teach various techniques, including stab stitching and variations, chapbook stitching and variations, accordion folds and variations, flag (flip/flap) books, stitching signatures into concertina structures, and simple popups and/or flexagons (or as much as she can cover within the two-hour workshop!).

Esther K Smith is the artistic director of Purgatory Pie Press, author of Making Books with Kids and Magic Books & Paper Toys, and editor of the Rizzoli reprint of WH Page’s Specimens of CHROMATIC WOOD TYPE, Borders &c. She makes collaborative limited editions with letterpress printer Dikko Faust, Susan Happersett, and other artists & writers. Purgatory Pie Press works are in public and private collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Cooper Hewitt, London’s V&A, and Tate Modern Museum.

Assisted by Amanda Mundy, 2025 MFA Candidate in Graphic Design, Boston University

FRIDAY
3:00 PM–5:00 PM

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave 4th Floor, Room 412

Free Registration

Limited to 15 participants

RISOGRAPH WORKSHOP WITH ALEX LUCIANO

Participants will use hands-on drawing and collaging techniques to create a 2-color personal Greek-inspired pottery print. You’ll be encouraged to consider personal myths, dreams, and symbology to make a unique vessel while layering Risograph inks to create fun color combinations. We’ll go over how cut-and-paste design elements can be strategically layered and consider the possibilities of overprinting and knockout to make a dimensional 2-color print run!

Alex Luciano is an illustrator, printmaker, and Riso enthusiast based in Richmond, VA. She uses Risograph printing to create books and prints featuring her sculptures, drawings, and more.

Assisted by Campbell Morin, BFA Candidate in Graphic Design, Boston University

FRIDAY
3:00 PM–4:30 PM

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave 4th Floor, Room 411

Free and Open to the Public

VARIOUS TUTORIALS

Join us for a series of short tutorials on how to do various things, presented by a selection of this year's art book fair exhibitors:

—How to Color Separate a Flower (with Rathaus Press)
—How to Plan An Edition Size (with Small Editions)
—How to Artist Residency (with Directangle Press)
—How to Correct Your Posture (with Sean Suchara)
—How to Make a Flipbook (with Side Projects)
—How to Treat Language as Material (with WHAT-THAT)
—How to Draw a Comic (with Sadie Saunders)
—How to Make an Infinite Book (with Alex Belardo Kostiw)
—How to Request a Printing Quote (with New Documents)

Hosted by Dharshanya Venkataramanan, 2024 MFA Candidate in Graphic Design, Boston University. Introductions by MFA candidates Lauren Greenblatt, Jason Dong, Dharshanya Venkataramanan, Chichi Zhao; and BFA candidates Julia Cheung, Riley Fitzpatrick, Daniel Galvin, Vincent Liu, and Grace Snow.

FRIDAY
4:30–5:00 PM

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave 4th Floor, Room 411

Free and Open to the Public

MULTIPLE LETTERS

OPEN CALL!

We are making a typeface at Multiple Formats!

Sign up to participate in a LIVE letterform drawing performance on Friday, March 22, at 4:30 PM.

Each participant will draw ONE LETTER in Adobe Illustrator or by hand.

No previous experience is needed!

Afterward, the typeface will be digitized and distributed for free on the Multiple Formats website. It may even be used for next year’s visual identity!

Fill out this form for a scheduled slot and take part in drawing a collaborative alphabet.

Hosted by Body&Forma (Chen Luo and Bella Tuo)

FRIDAY
5:00 PM

Location:
808 Commonwealth Ave 4th Floor, Room 411

Free and Open to the Public

FEATURED SPEAKER—
ELLIOTT EARLS

“FROM CONTENT TO CAPITAL—YOUTUBE, PRINT DROPS AND A STRATEGIC PATH”

Designer-in-Residence and head of the Graphic Design Department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Elliott Earls experiments in non-linear digital video, spoken word poetry, music composition, and design, all of which he has used in work for clients such as Elektra Entertainment, Nonesuch Records, The Cartoon Network (U.K.), and Janus Films. As a typographer, his original type design is distributed worldwide by Emigre Inc.

His work as a designer, performer, and contemporary artist is represented in public and private collections including the Smithsonian Cooper- Hewitt National Design Museum, The Wolfsonian Museum, The Miami Art Museum, and the Triennale Museum in Milan. As a performance artist, Earls was awarded an Emerging Artist Grant from Manhattan’s prestigious Wooster Group. Earls has performed globally including featured shows during the Exit Festival at Masion des arts de Créteil, and at Music Hall, Detroit.

His YouTube channel, Studio Practice, takes a look inside the designer’s studio.

Introduction by Kate Ragosta and Nolan Thompson, BFA Candidates in Graphic Design, Boston University

From the Archive
⌫ View the 2023 Symposium Schedule
⌫ View the 2022 Symposium Schedule

2024 Graphic Identity by Bella Tuo, MFA Candidate in Graphic Design at Boston University

2023 Graphic Identity by Jaylen Wang, MFA Candidate in Graphic Design at Boston University

2022 Graphic Identity by Chen Luo, 2022 MFA in Graphic Design, Boston University

Speakers