Julia Spewak Fiona Mcmichael

Pre-Shrunk Press

Julia Spewak & Fiona McMichael

Nostalgia

Memory

Branding/Design/Typography

World Building

“Pre-Shrunk Press” is the thesis work of Graphic Design students Fiona McMichael & Julia Spewak. The duo are playing both the publishers and the resident artists, working together to build a pseudo-realistic publishing house. The press reports on seemingly useless (or otherwise mundane) information, mass-producing it in zine format and distributing it to the masses. The final product is 52 issues, and nearly 3,000 total printed zines, throughout their final semester of school.

The project itself is simultaneously a performance and print-based commentary on the daunting task of finding a place in the world of graphic design post-graduation. They are pushing this point by using plenty of art buzzwords, placing focus on harvesting lots of social media engagement, and leaning into the tension between the “evil publisher” and “starving artist” characters they are playing concurrently. However as the project has unfolded, the idea of “making it” in the art world doesn’t seem so scary after all.