craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality

be that as it may i think they need to, uh... maybe work on their messaging a little bit

when the video zooms in on logo for THE LUDDITE over a soundtrack of chunky electric guitar power chords, i mean

an 'ipster

I didn't watch the video. I'm generally a supporter of letterpress printing, as I am a letterpress printer, but am constantly thinking about the way it's used/viewed. On one hand it's an old-fashioned process that results in a high-quality product that can't be replicated with cheaper/newer technologies. On the other hand there are people doing it just to keep an old tradition around.

an historic hipster

I assumed there were plenty of small, letterpressed journals floating around, am I wrong?

dan i have no problem with letterpress whatsoever! i'm just unimpressed with the too-precious gee-whiz novelty it brings to the idea of a print-only publication

anyway -- fizzle's suggestion of mobile phone companies being descendant of old textile houses reminded me in a circular manner of this photo that popped up on my tumblr dash recently, coming from a blog mentioned itt before -- itsworn.tumblr.com

http://24.media.tumblr.com/f7350181588b3dd42ed693ffdd38bb08/tumblr_mrjcmnwQJ61qdbn9do1_500.jpg

leather iphone case! with indigo stains from raw denim! ah, the patina of a year's worth of use really adds character to your phone... which you probably won't own anymore past the next 6 months

There aren't that many fully letterpressed journals. It's too much work and too expensive. Only bigger shops that have hot metal equipment and large enough presses can do it in anyway that makes sense.

also using kickstarter to fund a letterpress only journal is a little like being helicoptered into an authentic wilderness experience

this is a dude i know that has his shop right by my house, and i think its super cool in there

http://nomadicletterpress.com/

thx to the minnesota center for book arts, we have a bunch of letterpress journals etc floating around town actually.

http://www.mnbookarts.org/

my boss brought me a bamboo iphone 5 case from shenzhen but I haven't used it yet bc let's face it it's not gonna offer much force absorption in a drop.

and a panda might eat it

Eat it while shitting at the same time. Disgusting creatures.

not enough energy in it iirc? have to eat it continuously, hence the eating/shitting thing. and I think I have existential crises. imagine trying to winnow meaning from that fucked up reductive mechanic.

no wonder they struggle to bother with reproduction, can't imagine that panda teenagers have mcuh to be thankful for- and it's not like they can go any gother

It's almost like the plankton feeding of the terrestrial arena, except not graceful and apparently incredibly tedious and fucking gross.

http://cassch.in/brooklyn/

pretty funny/well-executed even though the joke is a little played

Lol so after posting abt my bamboo iPhone case last Friday I was like oh fuck it might as well try it on, and now I kind of love it and have not had it off since. I left out the most important thing before which is that the back side is taken up entirely by a laser etched US flag.

This seems worth discussing, although I wish it was a little more developed and longer:
http://www.brooklyntheborough.com/2013/10/the-mallification-of-brooklyns-creative-makers/

Oh, here's an article on what it was responding to, for context:
http://hyperallergic.com/88183/blessed-are-the-makers-the-rise-and-fall-of-3rd-ward/

IDK if there's a non-critical craftsmanship thread but I guess I'll post this here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsIo57pH-pA

My parents are there right now! Sending to them.

We had a neon sign made for our wedding from this husband of a co-worker:

http://419neon.com/

He does really good work. The hipster brooklyn artisinal neon place is here:

http://www.litebriteneon.com/

It's in the Old American Can Factory which now has a Whole Foods across the street at the corner of 3rd and 3rd in Brooklyn. I used to work at a letterpress shop across the hall. I'd walk by and see a neon sign on the wall that just said SYD BARRETT. That building would pretty much make this thread's head explode.

Don't remember if I plugged it here, by my contribution so craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality is here:

http://www.sheffieldproduct.com/

meant to comment on the neon sign stuff, as I'd seen that interesting mini-documentary and been to the neon sign boneyard in vegas in the space of a couple of weeks. there couldn't have been a better introduction to vegas than a history told through its discarded neon signs.

couple of things, defining craftspeople away from western bourgeois microindustries -

one is the political and social importance of the craftsman in Gaza (low levels of technical infrastructure, area in need of constant repair), the role of craftsmen in maintaining and improving Gaza's military capability, and the successful mobilisation of the craftsman by Hamas. The Yorkshire Ranter touches on this here. (and has several interesting pieces on how military logistics define the recent intensification of conflict here and here.)

In the Gazan context, the question might be “how much of the work needs a real craftsman, and how much can be done by an underemployed 19-year old who may also be the one to fire it?”, followed by “which of those two is more likely to vote Hamas?” Siege is a fundamentally economic form of warfare; the Israelis are besieging Gaza, and the Gazans are trying to impose a counter-siege (John Kerry wasn’t entirely wrong). As always, it requires the political mobilisation of the skilled on both sides.

The Israelis reckon that the production is organised in craft workshops, about 70 of them, with about 250 employees, i.e about four employees per business. If you assume that each shop is run by a craftsman, this is quite a skill-dense process. That said, this 2009 Der Spiegel piece by a reporter who actually witnessed rocket manufacturing seems to suggest a more informal process, more closely linked to the launch team, although it also identifies that an apprenticeship career path exists or existed. Now that’s interesting!

second, was reading a UN report on Somali/Horn of Africa piracy recently - they have three models of piracy: the artisanal scheme, low level, self-funded piracy, the co-operative scheme (an extension of the artisanal scheme, and usually funded by a committee of financiers), and the individualistic scheme (where the whole is more controlled by a single financier rather than the participants, who resemble a well-ordered militia).

The artisanal Scheme
Not all pirate operations are part of a wider syndicate. For instance, some “ama- teur” pirates have been seen operating in the Gulf of Aden (UNODC 2011a). It is not known what proportion of pirate activities are being sponsored in this way. These operations are of a lower scale and are mainly composed of members of the same family or relatives who share the cost of preparing the operation, either by bringing money or instruments, such as weapons, or a ladder, for instance (Hansen 2012; UNODC 2011a). The cost of such an operation is estimated to be no more than US$300 (Hansen 2012), and its success rather limited. The return on investment is proportionate to the original investment, based on the ransom received and after all costs have been deducted.

(Somali piracy itself has declined significantly in recent years, with piracy having shifted over to the west cost of the continent aiui).

finally, dan - that stuff looks great!

great, ferociously interesting post. more please.

cheers imago, they're placeholders for further reading as much as anything else - the Yorkshire Ranter pieces are well worth reading tho. For the moment should just note that excerpt came from a World Bank report, not a UN report.

Excellent post and very apt choice of thread, Mr. Fizzles T. C. The importance of craft emerges more prominently as available capital recedes, but even in a heavily capitalized venture it's always there, even if it is mostly sunken from view.

http://i.imgur.com/S79bUfd.gif

jfc

support craftsmanship, or at least give me a sliver of a chance at become a craftsman, and becoming one full time. Vote for my letterpress business here:

https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/business/detail/52517

congrats on your wedding

thanks! 6 months this past weekend.

http://www.artshub.co.uk/job/london/visual-artists/apprentice-to-globe-makers-190996

http://www.bellerbyandco.com/index.php/globes.html

so perfect

http://www.remadeco.org/

amazing

Kevin Faul
December 6, 2013 at 7:05am
Do you guys ship overnight? I have a hell of a clog going on here and I'm scared to use this plunger of questionable origin under my sink. Please let me know asap
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Re Made Company Yes. Definitely. We can help you out with that clog.

I initially didn't notice that the NYT article wasn't actually on the NYT website and I was reading through getting more and more confused

I thought this was interesting, even if it seems like an inevitable result:
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/etsy-not-good-for-crafters

http://thebrotique.co.uk/collections/manhampers

Designed for the man who needs everything, our exclusive range of manhampers are designed to make gift giving easier than ever before. Build your own or choose from one of our carefully designed Manhampers, with something for every kind of gent.

#manhamper

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0296/4057/products/Bicycle-Wine-Rack-angle-front.jpg

oopsmark Bicycle Wine Rack

£27.00

Perfect for that boozy bike ride (don't drink and drive)

If you like wine and you like biking, you're going to love this. The handmade leather bicycle wine rack is perfect for taking wine with you on the go. It easily attaches to most bike frames with antique brass fasteners, while the hidden clamps hold the bottle securely. Best of all, the vegetable-tanned leather will only look better as it ages.

"the vegetable-tanned leather will only look better as it ages" is one of those things that jumps out at me as sort of an arriviste shibboleth. Like, leather looks better as it ages, that's a thing about leather, right? It wears in. Nobody with decades of history of selling things made of leather would bother to point that out, their customer knows that about leather.

jfc sooooo tired of "man____" manbags manbun manhamper mancave i will vomit next time i hear this

manvom

seriously we're just passing over "brotique" or is that on another thread

I was gonna comment, but I can't believe they're not also in on the joke, so...

Was "mantiques" already taken?

chapcessories