Temporary Services: Prisoner’s Inventions & Revolution As An Eternal Dream

Temporary Services has a knack for locating and highlighting really interesting off-beat materials and then turning that stuff into great books. In 2005 the excellent WhiteWalls press approached us about designing Temporary Services collection of drawings by a prisoner named Angelo. The resulting book, Prisoner’s Inventions, highlights the ways prisoners cobble together tools (a tattoo gun made from a Walkman, a paper clip, and a pen, as well as  cups from toilet paper) adding amenities to their spare existences.

Prisoner's Inventions. Book design by Department of Graphic Sciences.

Half Letter Press is the name of the publishing house Temporary Services formed a few years back. They started it because they were “ interested in using this endeavor to build long-term support and expanded audiences for people that work creatively in experimental ways.”

Revolution As An Eternal Dream, by Mary Patten.

This last month Half Letter released Revolution As An Eternal Dream, by Mary Patten. Like Prisoner’s Inventions, this book highlights the work of artists far outside the mainstream. Here it’s the design of the Madame Binh Graphics Collective,  active in NYC during the late 1970s and early 80s. Patten’s narrative discusses her experiences working with this very committed group of anti-imperialist graphic designers. One of the most interesting passages concern the very ideological criticism the group received from there ideological peers regarding their posters hues and palettes.

Congratulations Temporary Services, and keep up the good work.