Graphic design grad Georgia Cranstoun reconsiders authorship with a “bootleg” book

You may recognise Australian graphic designer Georgia Cranstoun’s name from our graduate line-up of 2016. Back then, the Central Saint Martins BA graphic design graduate told us that “the areas that interest me most in graphic design are book layout, typography, and print. I think there is something so special about a well-designed book, a unique typeface and unfamiliar print design”. So it’s no surprise that Georgia is back with FontExperimenta, a self-initiated project in the form of a print-on-demand “bootleg” book.

The book is a low-cost duplicate of a pricier original tome. While the original was bound with a foil-block cover, paper embossing and archive-quality photographic paper and colour images, the “bootleg” copies are printed on cheap paper in black and white, raising questions of authorship, creative property and notions of perceived “quality”. Across the pages of FontExperimenta, Georgia explores typography by unpicking both the functional and non-functional elements of letterforms from A to Z using 2D, 3D, drawings and photography. Peruse a selection from Georgia’s experimental A to Z below.