DESIGN & FASHION

Print Punch
CentreCentre 2020 ISBN 9781916412132 Acqn 30150
Hb 24x31cm 208pp col ills £30.00

Data used to be physical. In an era when 1s and 0s seem to hover above our heads, Print Punch
returns to the heyday of the punch card-to a time when you could touch (and punch) data. The
aesthetics of this early move towards automation represent a unique moment in our history, when
we designed for machines instead of human beings. Rigorous constraints, inherent in punch card
technology, unwittingly birthed a coherent design language: rhythm in grids, punched absences
and presences, and the patterns in them dancing to their own machine logic. Now obsolete,
punch cards were the primary method of data storage and processing from the 1890s until the
late 1970s; spanning almost a century of ubiquitous utility, the artefacts of that era sit between
these pages to be examined anew.

Featuring over 200 punch cards, 150 archival images and essays by Steven E Jones, Sandra
Rendgen and John L Walters.

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DESIGN & FASHION

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DESIGN & FASHION

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DESIGN & FASHION

orders@artdata.co.uk

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