TYPEFACE (Kartemquin Films)

In rural Wisconsin, a lone employee waits in a cavernous old museum for visitors to come. A few individuals straggle in every few days and then, come Friday, the museum fills with life. Machines hum, presses print, artists buzz about. One weekend each month, the quiet of Two Rivers is interrupted as carloads of artisans drive in from across the Midwest. The place comes alive as printmaking workshops led by, and filled with, some of the nation's top design talent descend on the sleepy enclave.

In a time when people can carry computers in their pockets and watch TV while walking down the street, Typeface dares to explore the twilight of an analog craft that is freshly inspiring artists in a digital age. The Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, WI personifies cultural preservation, rural re-birth and the lineage of American graphic design. At Hamilton, international artisans meet retired craftsmen and together navigate the convergence of modern design and traditional technique. But the Museum¹s days may be numbered. What is the responsibility of artists and historians to preserve a dying craft?


See the trailers on youtube

TITANIC: THE MISSION (Channel 4 documentary)

Episode 5 (final episode) of the current series will air on Monday night next at 9pm. It's been quite an informative series about the construction of various elements of Titanic. Episode 4 has been my favourite to date, it dealt with the interior design of the 1st class smoking room and a third class cabin.

The episodes are available for a while on 4OD and on youtube.

STAR OF THE SEA by Joseph O'Connor

Just about to finish this book as it was recommended to me as a good starting point for realising the conditions and previous history of emigration from Ireland. Although fiction and based 65 years before the Titanic set sail it gives a very energetic account of what conditions were like for emigrants during the famine. Some in dire poverty and some with much to lose. Conditions which I'm sure also prevailed on board Titanic and which I'd like to touch upon through the narrative of my book.