Tools shape practice shapes tools...

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/tekn.95105
Keywords: graphic designers, art education, open source software

Abstract

This article narrates a partial history of two decades of doing graphic design with free, libre and open-source tools. We follow the development of tools and practices that allowed graphic design practice to shift, such as layouts being generated by scripts, books being rendered out of webpages and editorial workflows being transformed into collaborative environments. It threads through a body of shared knowledge and modes of designing with software, focusing on sites that are key in these design practices: layout tools, open fonts and publishing platforms. As practitioners and active participants, the authors provide reflections on the entangled positions of these tools and the possibilities for engagement that they offer. By following their uptake by groups and collectives in Europe through time, we end with an analysis of the way that changes in the wider free software community and digital practice affect these still ongoing initiatives.

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Grupo de Investigación Cultura Digital y Movimientos Sociales. Cibersomosaguas

Author Biographies

Manetta Berends, XPUB, Master Experimental Publishing

Manetta Berends works with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. Her artistic practice crosses with free software, collective work and publishing, and is co-shaped through engagements with collective situations and organisations where she works on questions around self-organisation (as a co-founder of the collective space Varia), tools (as part of Creative Crowds) and education (at XPUB, the Master Experimental Publishing at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam). https://manettaberends.nl

Femke Snelting, The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest

Femke Snelting develops projects at the intersection of publishing, feminisms, and Free Software. In various constellations she works on re-imagining computational practices to disinvest from technological monoculture. With Miriyam Aouragh, Seda Gürses and Helen Pritchard she runs The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest, a trans-practice gathering of activists, artists, engineers and theorists. In Ecologies of Dissemination (with Eva Weinmayr) she investigates trans*feminist and decolonial approaches to Open Access. With Jara Rocha, she edited Volumetric Regimes: Material Cultures of Quantified.
Presence (Open Humanities Press, 2022). Femke supports artistic research
at MERIAN (Maastricht) and collective digital services at Nubo (Brussels)

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Published
2025-01-13
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How to Cite
Berends M. y Snelting F. (2025). Tools shape practice shapes tools.. Teknokultura. Journal of Digital Culture and Social Movements, 22(1), 5-18. https://doi.org/10.5209/tekn.95105
Issue
Vol. 22 No. 1 (2025): Art, design and digital culture
Section
Karpeta

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In order to support the global exchange of knowledge, the journal Teknokultura is allowing unrestricted access to its content as from its publication in this electronic edition, and as such it is an open-access journal. The originals published in this journal are the property of the Complutense University of Madrid and any reproduction thereof in full or in part must cite the source. All content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 use and distribution licence (CC BY 4.0). This circumstance must be expressly stated in these terms where necessary. You can view the summary and the complete legal text of the licence.