You have a strong background in graphic design. Tell me about how AndPress started?
In my design work I am always drawn to more tangible work such as print and installations. It has been a more satisfying alternative to websites and projects that only live in the digital world. I like seeing that final product. I would always get bummed out if I saw a cool book that was badly designed or just thrown together. I feel like a lot of people just put out books to put something out.
And Press originally started as something smaller and has gradually grown as I have been getting these books finished. I kept adding more books to the first release. I want to make books that people will still care about years from now and I wanted to do that with people who's work I'm really into. Basically make books that I wanted to buy. There are people out there like Nieves, Rollo Press and Aaron Rose (among others) who have been making great things. I hope to just add to that tradition a little if I can.
Moving from designing to publishing - what are the core challenges?
I had some experience with printing beforehand but starting this has been figuring out a whole new set of problems. For each book you have to figure out the correct paper, binding, size, printing etc, based on the work and the personality of the artist. Then I had to find the right machines for the studio and how to use everything. There is a lot of small tedious aspects of everything when you are handmaking some of the books, but after designing for so many years it is nice to switch it up for part of the week.
You're doing both larger offset full-color books and smaller hand produced editions. How would you describe your approach?
Not every book made should be a full-color perfect bound book. For me it's just about doing it right, regardless of the size. At the end of the day I would rather see a really nice small zine then a huge shoddy hard-cover book. I like the idea of smaller editions that may be more sought after a few years. I don't have any desire to have the books in Barnes and Noble or any place like that. I'm trying to keep most of the books as monograms. Ones that have 75 artists and give them each 2 pages don't do much for me anymore. I feel like you end up spending more time flipping pages then learning anything about any one of them. I would rather do an over-view of someone's work that doesn't have a book out yet, or really explore and illustrate a specific aspect of an artist's work.
