Due to the overwhelming response we received on social media when we posted images of this exhibition and the many visitors that flocked to Type Directors Club to see it, we want to give our global fans a closer look at the creative, inspiring work by designers invited to make hand-crafted pieces inside one of the world’s largest digital companies.
TDC member Scott Boms of the Facebook Analog Research Lab in California organized this exhibition and provided this introduction to the handmade posters, zines, books, and handouts created between 2010 and 2018 by the Lab’s friends and designers-in-residence:
“Where digital is fast, analog is slow. Ad where digital is right, print should be wrong. Analog and digital technologies are expected to be at odds with each other. And the last place you might expect to find a low-tech, human-scale printmaking studio is in the heart of Silicon Valley. Yet the philosophy that underpins the Analog Research Lab rejects this notion by bringing art, design, illustration, printmaking and the creative process to the forefront to influence ad shape the physical environment and nature of conversation at Facebook.
If “artists are the antennae of the human race” as Ezra Pound famously said, it’s the posters, prints, books, zines, and ephemera presented as part of this exhibit and produced by in-house designers and a diverse group of invited Designers in Residence that intend to remind, reveal, and respond to critical questions in the zeitgeist and those we don’t even know need to be asked.
Inside the Analog Research Lab, the reward is the process, not just the outcome. Design and printmaking are slow processes. Each force us to think, ask questions, and be involved and invested, not only passive bystanders or consumers. If the future is fast, what makes these processes slow is what makes them paradoxically compelling and empowering.
Collectively this body of work comprises a unique visual history of Facebook between 2010 and 2018 through the eyes of the Analog Research Lab and Designer in Residence program. Individually, each piece is a time capsule and story shaped by the human hand – a tactile, imperfect manifestation of the values, perspectives, and psyches of their makers in a physical form. Each is a unique lens on humans in search of connection, empathy, understanding, and inclusion in an ever-complex and accelerating digital world.”
Analog Lab & Friends:
Ben Barry, Tim Belonax, Scott Boms, Jez Burrows, Beth Dean, Leonardo De La Rocha, Djohan Hanapi
Analog Lab Designer in Residence Program:
Joseph Alessio, Bijan Berahimi, Kaye Blegvad, Trevor Finnegan, Heather Hardison, Hanna K. Lee, Fuchsia MacAree, Frances MacLeod, Fiona McDonnel, Jimmy Mezei, Conor Nolan, Eddie Perrote, Elana Schlenker, Mario Wagner
Stay in touch with the Analog Research Lab
Facebook: @Analoglab
Instagram: @analoglab
Watch Scott and several of the artists in this video of the show’s opening night.