Unlicensed. Bootlegging as Creative Practice
This black-and-white softcover book, the cover of which is perforated with the main title in a dot-matrix style, directly and vividly expresses the design ethos and methods of unauthorised reproduction. A couple of introductory texts by the designer/editor/author are followed by two dozen interviews with bootleggers from the worlds of graphic design, fashion, music and beyond. Everything is printed in white on black, with the pictures appearing as negatives. The dark overall impression can be read as a metaphor for the black market, while the negative forms of the images might equally be interpreted as a precaution against copyright issues. An intuitive, recurring stylistic device is the direct juxtaposition of images of originals next to those of their bootlegs. The small format of the book, the consistent text columns with a relatively bold serif typeface, and the images of varying size all reference a familiar type of book, which to some extent this work feels like it is itself bootlegging.
