Raven holding one of the hand-printed editions of Taboo.

For the majority of the copies of Taboo, we decided to print the cover digitally. The main reason for this is that it would simply be an immense amount of work to manually print 400 covers. Instead, we decided to do 50, a more feasible amount. Digitally printing meant that we first made a print of the cover design on a regular piece of paper, which we then scanned and colorised. These were then printed by our printer onto the editions, whom we asked to print 50 of the 400 copies with a blank cover, so that we could hand-print the linocut onto these ourselves.

A few of the hand-printed covers, showing a variety of textures.

A linocut is a method of printing something where a design is cut into a piece of linoleum using a variety of cutting tools. When ink is applied to the linoleum and then pressed onto something; a piece of paper, a shirt, an edition of Bnieuws, the areas of the linoleum that are cut out will not press any ink onto the surface, leaving a design behind. This process offers a lot of room to play with negative space to create an interesting design. The best part? Every print is unique, as the process leaves a different paint texture on every print.

A close up of the covers.

These 50 unique editions of Bnieuws are now available at the faculty! Do you have a cool idea for a cover design? Contact us and it may just end up on a future edition!