Libre Graphics magazine

Since 2010, with the help of an irreplaceable set of contributors, we’ve published eight issues of Libre Graphics magazine, spread over two volumes. Sometimes we’ve been slow, but we’ve always gotten the issue out in the end. With the release of issue 2.4, we’re announcing the end of the project. Magazines take a lot of care and feeding, and we think it’s time to let this one go. We’re proud of the two volumes we’ve produced, and we’re stopping while we’re ahead.

Over the last five-and-a-bit years, we’ve published written and visual work that we believe shows off what’s most exciting about Free/Libre and Open Source graphics, design, and art. We’ve published the work of a range of people, with varied opinions on the present and future of a whole collection of issues and concerns in the libre graphics world. We’re pleased to have been a venue for thoughtful writing on subjects as broad as the licensing of fonts, gender representation in F/LOSS, and automatic typesetting. One of the things we’re proudest of is providing a venue where artists and designers who are new to F/LOSS can get their bearings, and can see that amazing work can and is being done with libre software and licenses.

So we’re ending things on a high note. But, being a project inspired by F/LOSS, we’re not disappearing entirely. Though we won’t be continuing active development of the magazine and won’t be publishing new issues, we’ll be continuing to make the work that’s already happened available. Our repositories are still up, and you can still branch them, copy them, and use their contents. We’re leaving our website up, too, so that you can download the PDFs and point other people to them. You can still get and read digital copies of every issue of Libre Graphics magazine, and you can still print them out should you so desire. And, until we run out of the stock we have on hand, you can still order copies of most back issues in print.

We want to thank you for an excellent few years, for the encouragement, the contributions, and for reading.

Ana Isabel Carvalho
ginger coons
Ricardo Lafuente

We’re very pleased to announce the release of issue 2.4 of Libre Graphics magazine.

This issue looks at Capture, the act of encompassing, emulating and encapsulating difficult things, subtle qualities. Through a set of articles we explore capture mechanisms, memory, archiving and preservation of volatile digital information, physicality and aesthetization of data.

Capture is the fourth and final issue in volume two of Libre Graphics magazine. Libre Graphics magazine is a print publication devoted to showcasing and promoting work created with Free/Libre Open Source Software. We accept work about or including artistic practices which integrate Free, Libre and Open software, standards, culture, methods and licenses.

We invite you to buy the print edition of the issue, download the PDF or browse through the source files. We invite everyone to download, view, write, pull, branch and otherwise engage.

This issue features pieces and contributions by Raphael Bastide, Antonio Roberts, Eric Schrijver, Birgit Bachler, Walter Langelaar, Stéphanie Vilayphiou, Scandinavian Institute for Computational Vandalism, Sebastian Schmieg, Kenneth Goldsmith, Robert M Ochshorn, Jessica Fenlon, Anna Carreras, Carles Domènech and Mariona Roca.

Issue 2.4: Capture

Data capture sounds like a thoroughly dispassionate topic. We collect information from peripherals attached to computers, turning keystrokes into characters, turning clicks into actions, collecting video, audio and images of varying quality and fidelity. Capture in this sense is a young word, devised in the latter half of the twentieth century. For the four hundred years previous, the word suggested something with far higher stakes, something more passionate and visceral. To capture was to seize, to take, like the capture of a criminal or of a treasure trove. Computation has rendered capture routine and safe.

But capture is neither simply an act of forcible collection or of technical routine. The sense of capture we would like to approach in this issue is gentler, more evocative. Issue 2.4 of Libre Graphics magazine, the last in volume 2, looks at capture as the act of encompassing, emulating and encapsulating difficult things, subtle qualities. Routinely, we capture with keyboards, mice, cameras, audio recorders, scanners, browsing histories, keyloggers. We might capture a fleeting expression in a photo, or a personal history in an audio recording. Our methods of data capture, though they may seem commonplace at first glance, offer opportunities to catch moments.

We’re looking for work, both visual and textual, exploring the concept of capture, as it relates to or is done with F/LOSS art and design. All kinds of capture, metaphorical or literal, are welcome. Whether it’s a treatise on the politics of photo capture in public places, a series of photos taken using novel F/LOSS methods, documentation of a homebrew 3D scanner, any riff on the idea of capture is invited. We encourage submissions for articles, showcases, interviews and anything else you might suggest. Proposals for submissions (no need to send us the completed work right away) can be sent to submissions@libregraphicsmag.com.The deadline for submissions is May 11th, 2015.

Capture is the fourth and final issue in volume two of Libre Graphics magazine. Libre Graphics magazine is a print publication devoted to showcasing and promoting work created with Free/Libre Open Source Software. We accept work about or including artistic practices which integrate Free, Libre and Open software, standards, culture, methods and licenses.

We’re very pleased to announce the long-awaited release of Libre Graphics magazine issue 2.3. This issue is guest-edited by Manuel Schmalstieg and addresses a theme we’ve been wanting to tackle for some time: type design. From specimen design to international fonts, constraint-based type to foundry building, this issue shows off the many faces of libre type design.

With the usual cast of columnists, stunning showcases and intriguing features, issue 2.3, The Type Issue, given an entrée into what’s now and next in F/LOSS fonts.

The Type Issue is the third issue in volume two of Libre Graphics magazine. Libre Graphics magazine is a print publication devoted to showcasing and promoting work created with Free/Libre Open Source Software. We accept work about or including artistic practices which integrate Free, Libre and Open software, standards, culture, methods and licenses.

At Libre Graphics Meeting this year, the Libre Graphics magazine team gave two talks. Below, the deck from our second talk, titled “Dear designer, have these cool tools” made with scri.ch.

Below, we present to you a set of reading suggestions created collaboratively (in real time, on an etherpad) during the “Beyond the women in tech talk” panel held at LibrePlanet 2014. This list is the work of a number of different people who attended the panel. A version which shows revision history can be found at http://piratepad.net/lp2014-beyond-women

 
reading list — suggestions from the LP 2014 Beyond Women in Tech talk

for those coming to this after not seeing the talk — a list of resources for folks looking to educate themselves. 

Published here: https://twitter.com/fsf/status/447461813849190401 & https://status.fsf.org/notice/45714

http://bit.ly/journalists-of-color  — list of 140+ journalists of color (with links to personal blogs, etc) covering a variety of topics (via http://www.diversify.journalismwith.me/)

http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/- queer, poc, atypically abled voices.the blog’s purpose is NOT to educate about privilege, but is extremely informative if you are willing to think critically about yourself re: what the writers are saying,  and their experiences 

http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/ – “The Crunk Feminist Collective (CFC) will create a space of support and camaraderie for hip hop generation feminists of color, queer and straight, in the academy and without”

http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/ – madprime’s suggestion, Ta-Nehisi Coates, prompting this question. TNC regularly writes about the black male perspective & helps me understand the (or rather, his) African American perspective. TNC’s audience has a lot of white liberals, and he’s figured out how to make us listen (or me, at least!). (but sometimes he talks about a geeky thing or two like D&D http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/01/growing-up-in-the-caves-of-chaos/267107/ ;-) )

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/counter_narrative.html written by http://tressiemc.com/ 
http://melissaharrisperry.com/
http://satifice.com/
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/urban-scientist/ – “A hip hop maven blogs on urban ecology, evolutionary biology & diversity in the sciences”
http://www.racialicious.com/ – “Racialicious is a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture.”
http://colorlines.com/ – “Colorlines is a daily news site where race matters, featuring award-winning investigative reporting and news analysis.”
https://www.takebackthetech.net/write/recent-posts – “Take Back the Tech! is a collaborative campaign to reclaim information and communication technologies (ICT) to end violence against women (VAW).”  (They have a feed of posts, but are not primarily a blog org.)

For expediency & to avoid mainstream aggregates & for more decentralization, use RSS! http://lzone.de/liferea/
http://planeteria.org/wfs/
http://empowermentors.org/page/view-page-slug/1/home

http://libcom.org/node/43011  – Not Your Mom’s Trans 101 – Asher

http://ovum.com/authors/nishant-shah/
Nishant Shah rec – http://dmlcentral.net/blog/nishant-shah/how-can-we-make-open-education-truly-open

If you’re at LGM 2014 in Leipzig this week and having trouble accessing the #lgm IRC through the usual *ahem* channels, try this web-based client.

We dusted off the cover of issue 1.2, for which we had laboriously traced a set of illustrations taken from the Lello Universal encyclopedia, scanned and published by El Bibliomata from the Sevilla Faculty library — be sure to see their other sets!

To mark Document Freedom Day, we’re releasing the source file for all the vector traced images — in SVG, of course!

You can get the SVG file here. Happy Document Freedom Day!