A quick post about the process of making the Exhibition in a box.
I toyed with lots of ideas from bespoke fancy boxes with velvet linings,special one off portfolios etc.All lovely and in keeping with making the subject regal and presented with pride but not very egalitarian and certainly not very practical.
I worked with an old friend and designer Wayne Ford and after much discussion we decided on something ,reasonably easy to replicate and produce at a decent cost whilst also fitting with the DIY,self motivation ethos of the subject.Something that could be distributed easily and whilst not cheap inexpensive enough to not be too precious.Something that can neb adapted to suit the space available and most of easy to display.
I looked at off the shelf boxes and labels but decided to get them made by an artisan box maker near the Thames, one of only a few family run companies that still make boxes this way and have been in the area of Woolwich for 150 years , I was treated to a tour,some of the machinery is close to 100 years old ! The staff are still paid weekly in cash !
I designed an instruction sheet to go with the label design and branding collaborated on with Wayne. We had a wonderful 20 page newspaper made and in keeping with the Working Mens club “theme” I printed a series of beermats to be included and presented in the final box.
I tried to outsource the beer mat printing but costs were high and unlike the other component parts was something I could do as well on a smaller scale.
It took a bit of working out but buy making templates of the various stages in Indesign I was able to make a physical template with which they worked.Very Heath Robinson but it works perfectly.
DEAN BELCHER CRITICAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 