"Hey, I’m Oriana, and I love Brooklyn. I love the creativity, the drive, the bizarre and beautiful ideas, the thrilling unique energy of the people who live here. This project tracks Brooklyn space by space, in the words of those who make it all happen. I hope you’ll check back often! (You can get email notifications of new profiles by signing up at the right.)

If you know of a space I should cover, have a correction for anything I’ve written, or just want to talk about amazing Brooklyn, email me at brooklynspacesproject@gmail.com."

Notes here by @tealtan:

"unusual contexts in writing / reading text

“In a hyperliterate society, the vast majority of reading is not consciously recognized as reading.”

“What readers expect is more important than what readers want.”

Bill Buxton: “every tool is the best at something and the worst at something else”

skills, path-dependency, learning effects

“…we actually like constraints once we're in them.”"

And notes from @litherland:

"11:40: “I do things like … just obsess about weird little details. So, for instance … like, how do you do text entry in a Netflix app on the Wii? You know? I think about this a lot.” Your many other talents notwithstanding, Tim, you may have missed your calling as a designer. /

18:30: “I think it’s a tragedy that we have not been able to figure out a good interface for pen and ink on reading devices.” Holy grail. My dream for years. I would give anything. I would give anything to be smart enough to figure this out."

"It's also important not to confuse 3-D printing & desktop-class fabrication. These aren't the same thing. There is more to desktop manufacturing than 3-D printers. A well-appointed contemporary maker workshop has working CNC mills, lathes, and laser cutters. A well-appointed design studio has the tools to make and finish prototypes that look very nice indeed. Aside from the 3-D printer, none of these tools are terribly science-fictional; they're well-established technologies that happen to be getting cheaper from year to year.

Something interesting happens when the cost of tooling-up falls. There comes a point where your production runs are small enough that the economies of scale that justify container ships from China stop working. There comes a point where making new things isn't a capital investment but simply a marginal one. Fab shops are already popping up, just like print shops did."

"Iceland never had any bookshops between the sixteenth century and the mid-nineteenth. It also had no schools. Yet by the end of the eighteenth century the population was almost entirely literate. Families in farms scattered over an enormous area taught their own children to read—and the Icelanders read a great deal, especially during the long winter months. Aside from religious works, their reading matter consisted primarily of Nordic sagas, copied and recopied over many generations in manuscript books, thousands of them, which now form the principal collections in Iceland’s archives. Iceland therefore provides an example of a society that contradicts everything in my diagram. For three and a half centuries, it had a highly literate population given to reading books, yet it had virtually no printing presses, no bookshops, no libraries, and no schools. An aberration? Perhaps, but the experience of the Icelanders may tell us something about the nature of literary culture throughout…"

"In early 2012, we will launch Pop-Hop Books & Curio, a creative retail space merging a bookshop and print studio in the Highland Park neighborhood of northeast Los Angeles. As a bookshop, we will specialize in art editions, literature, children's books, zines, and books as unique art objects. As a studio, we will offer workshops such as screen printing and book binding, as well as a forum for talks, readings, screenings and other creative programs and performances. It will be an environment that is inviting and approachable, dynamic and stimulating, a place that fosters inspiration and action in equal measure."

[See also: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/361643327/pop-hop-books-and-curio ]

"But then I remembered I already own a thermal printer. A cheap one that prints labels. So I researched a little more and figured out how one could have their own thermal printer to hack away on:

1. Buy a Dymo LabelWriter.
2. Buy this continuous thermal paper.
3. Use the Dymo JavaScript SDK.

Not as cute as the Little Printer, but appears to do the printing part of the equation. Mine prints pretty detailed stamps, so I think it should handle graphics like the ones that were in the demo. I haven’t gotten my hands on the continuous thermal paper yet, so I can’t say if the SDK will give as much control over printing, but it seems like a fun project if you’re looking for one."

"Mapvelopes is a 'map envelope' generator, inspired by the 'Google Envelopes' concept by Rahul Mahtani & Yofred Moik, showcased on the Yanko Design blog. Mapvelopes lets you create your own real-life versions of these envelopes, for any from and to address you wish.

To use it, simply enter the source and destination addresses below, and select the type of envelope you want to use. A PDF will be generated and returned to you, suitable for printing directly onto the envelope!

If there's a land route between your source and destination addresses, the route will be printed on the returned map envelope. If there's no route, or we don't have enough routing quota left for the day, an envelope with the start and end markers but no route will be returned."

"Incredible structures have been created within Minecraft. Why can't we take those virtual creations, and bring them into the real world? This is our attempt to create a bridge between Minecraft and the real world, via 3D Printers."

"The best thing about old books, I think, is their longevity and the traces of the history that they carry with them. Inscriptions, marginalia, doodles, vandalism, erasures, cutting out images and leaves–none of those are captured if your focus is solely on the text, and all of them have something to tell us about how a book was used."

"Archive your Twitter feed into a beautifully printed and bound book or keep it in PDF form."

"David graduated from the UNC in 1993, Yale in 1999, & went on to form O-R-G, a design studio in New York City. Stuart graduated from the University of Reading in 1994, the Werkplaats Typografie in 2000, and co-founded the arts journal Dot Dot Dot the same year. David currently teaches at Columbia University and Rhode Island School of Design. Stuart is currently involved in diverse projects at Parsons School of Design (NYC) and Pasadena Art Center (LA).<br />
<br />
Dexter Sinister recently established a workshop in the basement at 38 Ludlow Street, on the Lower East Side in New York City. The workshop is intended to model a ‘Just-In-Time’ economy of print production, running counter to the contemporary assembly-line realities of large-scale publishing. This involves avoiding waste by working on-demand, utilizing local cheap machinery, considering alternate distribution strategies, and collapsing distinctions of editing, design, production and distribution into one efficient activity."

"Instagram has brought the nostalgia of old Polaroid prints back to modern day, but deep down we all still miss the uniqueness of those square little photos you'd hold comfortably in your hand. So, we made Instaprint. <br />
<br />
Each Instaprint box is set with its location or a specific hashtag. Any Instagram tagged with that location or hashtag will pop out of the Instaprint box, giving you a modern day photo booth. <br />
<br />
To stay true to the old days, Instaprint uses a new printing technology developed by Zink. Similar to how instant film once worked, the color for the prints comes from the paper itself. No ink necessary."

"Let’s say you need to print an important email attachment on your way to work so that it’s waiting for you when you walk in the door. With Gmail for mobile and Google Cloud Print — a service that allows printing from any app on any device, OS or browser without the need to install drivers — you can. <br />
To get started, you’ll first need to connect your printer to Google Cloud Print. For now, this step requires a Windows PC but Linux and Mac support are coming soon. Once you’re set up, just go to gmail.com from your iPhone or Android browser and choose “Print” from the dropdown menu in the top right corner. You can also print eligible email attachments (such as .pdf or .doc) by clicking the “Print” link that appears next to them."

"A book printed through a printing chain made of four desktop printers using four different colors and technologies dated from 1880 to 1976. A production process that brings together small scale and large scale production, two sides of the same history.<br />
<br />
MAGENTA (Stencil duplicator, 1880)<br />
CYAN (Spirit duplicator, 1923)<br />
BLACK (Laser printer, 1969)<br />
YELLOW (Inkjet printer, 1976)"

"Remember when we made a connection by handing someone a photo? As our social circle spreads across a wider geographic area, we look for ways to share experiences. Technology has reconnected us to some extent, but we fiddle with too many cables and menus, and those individual connections get drowned out.<br />
<br />
Tableau acts as a bridge between users of physical and digital media, taking the best parts of both. It's a nightstand that quietly drops photos it sees on its Twitter feed into its drawer, for the owner to discover. Images of things placed in the drawer are posted to its account as well.<br />
<br />
Tableau is an anti-computer experience. A softly glowing knob that almost imperceptibly shifts color invites interaction without demanding it. The trappings of electronics are removed except for a vestigial cable knob for the paper tray. The nightstand drawer becomes a natural interface to a complex computing task, which now fits into the flow of life."

"This small book introduces the story & philosophy of a charter school dedicated to children of immigrant native families. It is designed with a combination of sacred imagery, hand-drawing, and computer generated diagrams. For this extremely low budget book we used newsprint paper and basic black and white printing."

"With Blurb, you’ll find all the tools you need to make your own photo book, whether you’re making a personalized wedding album, cookbook, baby book, travel photo book, or fundraising book. Count on bookstore-quality printing and binding, and a range of choices from Hardcover photobooks to Softcover paperbacks in an array of trim sizes. Use any of our free online bookmaking tools. Learn how to publish a book and much more with our free how-to tips and tutorials or watch our two-minute BookSmart video and see how easy it is to make a coffee table photo book. Be sure to register and subscribe to Blurb emails to get the news first on Blurb events and promo code coupon offers."

"Uncommon makes the most well-designed, highest quality customizable products available. Our proprietary 3D TATT™ (Thermo-Active Transdermal Technology™) process ensures durable, long-lasting, high resolution imagery on every product we imprint. We then package your art with care and ship it quickly and safely to your door."

"FLYING FISH PRESS was established in 1987 by internationally known book artist and book art educator Julie Chen. The press focuses on the design and production of limited edition artists' books with an emphasis on three-dimensional and movable book structures and fine letterpress printing. Editions range in size from 25 to 150 copies. Work from the press Is known for combining meticulous attention to craft, intricate structural design, and inspired artistic vision."

"I want to share with you a story about books, publishing, fundraising and seed capital. It's a story that I hope will change how you think about all of these topics. And it's a story that I hope will serve as a template.

"Fab@Home will change the way we live. It is a platform of printers and programs which can produce functional 3D objects. It is designed to fit on your desktop and within your budget. Fab@Home is supported by a global, open-source community of professionals and hobbyists, innovating tomorrow, today. Join us, and Make Anything."

"During our explorations in fresh developments in architecture we already found plenty of nifty projects, ideas and concepts that have the potential to totally reframe the production of the physical environment. Think of the facade printer, an invention that enables graphic designers to become architects. Or the rise of sustainable plastic as a structural building material. Via Blueprint Magazine we found out about the birth of a machine that is able to print entire buildings. The monster is located near Pisa, Italy, and its father is Enrico Dini, an engineer with a background in offline programming systems for six-axis robots."

"With the iPad we finally have a platform for consuming rich-content in digital form. What does that mean? To understand just why the iPad is so exciting we need to think about how we got here.

"FastPencil is book publishing without the pain. The traditional book publishing process can take many months of effort and more money than most writers anticipate. It’s no wonder authors get discouraged.

"The easiest way to print your photos on canvas.

"just starting to wrap my head around the economies of scale involved in printing...when they kick in and when they don't. For instance, in this case, it's a printer that's known for extreme flexibility. That's the appeal: You can get your stuff printed on the craziest paper, with the wackiest ink, all in some weird oblong format nobody's ever seen before. And I have to admit, I went in imagining a book bound in rubber recycled from moped tires. Something just utterly unique and awesome. But flexibility means every job is different. Flexibility means they have to set up and tear down the workflow for every...[job] instead of just adding it to a more-or-less homogenous hopper the way they do at, say, Lulu. Flexibility means you sacrifice those economies of scale...pretty basic stuff, but you have to be patient with us bloggers—we live sheltered lives, well-insulated from the exigencies of the physical world. I'm learning fast."

"Kosmos is a lightweight OpenStreetMap (OSM) map rendering platform developed by Igor Brejc (User:Breki). It was primarily designed to be used by OSM users on their own computers to:

"printed books themselves are something of an anomaly...mark the only time in history we’ve mass produced perfect copies of literature, text & illustrations. We’ve assumed that’s been for the best. Certainly it was convienent. But why would we ever have assumed that it would last? As a species, we are glossers. That’s why there are signs in public & university libraries that read ‘No Marking or Highlighting in the Books’...we have an impulse to do that...If you look at the majority of texts from the Medieval manuscript codex, they are full of glosses. After all, it’s this era more than any other that defines for us the term ‘palimpsest’...until now...I think we’re in the process of correcting the anomaly of printed mass produced text...we’re going back to our natural instincts...bookmarking online...highlighting & commenting...also doing something unique in the history of our vandalism against text: we’re sharing our glosses globally with immediate effect...this isn’t limited to text."

"COPYCATS is proud to offer our easy to use templates as a tool for graphic designers. These custom cd packaging templates will help you find the perfect look and feel for your product. Choose a platform above to download templates for your specialty cd packaging today!"

"Wouldn't it be great just to print out an Email or iPhone contact address and phone number, or quickly print out a web page to read later? Move files to or from your computer and print them. How about printing photos from your iPhone Photo Album? Or even take a picture and print it out straight away. Now you can!

"The microprinter is an experiment in physical activity streams and notification, using a repurposed receipt printer connected to the web.

"in many ways, that's [an unfinished book like Dave Gray's Marks and Meaning] a more interesting and involving thing to own than a finished book. You're getting an object, but you're also getting into a little community." ... "You see what I'm getting at here? Books/paper are proven technologies. Brilliant things. Really good at all sorts of stuff. We're not in an age where books are about to disappear. But many of the business models associated with them may do. Because we're getting direct access to book technologies ourselves." ... "So you add all these things together and you realise that there are all sorts of interesting possibilities around the corner. For community media projects, personal media projects, for the creativity that's running rampant online to emerge in physical forms in lots of places."

[part 1: http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2009/01/meet-the-new-schtick.html]

"So much joyful digital stuff is only a pleasure because it's hugely convenient; quick, free, indoors, no heavy lifting. That's enabled lovely little thoughts to get out there. But as 'digital natives' get more interested in the real world; embedding in it, augmenting it, connecting it, weaponising it, arduinoing it, printing it out, then those thoughts/things need to get better. And we might all need to acquire some analogue native skills."

"The niche genre of personal magazines, existing outside the realm of the commercial hoard, has been experimenting with this ethic for years. But, can it, or does it, still have a place in our ever more electronic world? I chat (ironically, via email) with a couple of magazine mavericks, Neil Feineman in la and Jeremy Leslie in the uk, about the state of the personal magazine, and other things too."

"23 years later and Desktop Factory, (previously mentioned on Ponoko Blog) are about to launch us into the 3rd dimension of desktop printing with their 125ci 3D Printer for under U$5000. The unit weighing around 90 lb (40kg) and 25 x 20 x 20 is only marginally bigger than the first Apple LaserWriter, and allowing for inflation, considerably cheaper."

"It's a service that let's you upload an image to a web site and the company prints the design as a pattern on 100% cotton fabric. Their customer service is great, and I think the fabric is reasonably-priced: it costs $18/yard, not counting shipping, and an individual 8x8-inch swatch is $5. The site is still in beta, so I had to request an invite to use Spoonflower, but a week after contacting them I was experimenting with patterns and ordering fabric."

"This Instructable covers the standard photo-emulsion screen printing process, which is great for printing text or images with fine detail...and at the end, you have your own personally-designed entirely unique prints on fabric, clothing, paper, or whatever else you can get under your screen." video here: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/13/bbtv-howto-guerrilla-1.html

"Have you ever wanted to turn your 3D designs into reality? Enter Shapeways! Just upload your design, we print it and ship it to you - it's easy. Within ten working days you'll hold your own design in your hands."

"¡Mapa Gigante! is a web site that lets you make high resolution GIANT MAPS!"

"MagCloud enables you to publish your own magazines. All you have to do is upload a PDF and we'll take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more."

"As a citadel of learning and as a platform for adventure on the Internet, the research library still deserves to stand at the center of the campus, preserving the past and accumulating energy for the future."

"attempts to walk you through the long and diverse history of a particular aspect of human endeavour: The translation of ideas, stories and concepts that are largely textual and/or word based into a visual format, i.e. visual communication."

"In other words, word spacing and silent reading help lay the foundations for the Renaissance and Reformation. Now that's profound."

"We like things -- books, the plastic arts, schwag, otherwise cheap souvenirs that become valued artifacts -- because they afford mystery and the room for an object to adapt to the world around them and not the other way around."

"Personal fabrication promises to change not only design and manufacturing, but also the phenomenon of “crowdsourcing”, according to Don Norman of Northwestern University in Illinois."

"Three-dimensional printers have long been used to create prototypes rapidly. Now some designers are using 3-D printers to create the products themselves, thanks to rapid advances in the printers' capabilities."

"Ponoko is the world's first personal manufacturing platform. It's the online space for a community of creators and consumers to use a global network of digital manufacturing hardware to co-create, make and trade individualized product ideas on demand."

"Ever wonder how letterpress printing works?"

"Fabio then described how the area should rather aim at simplicity, not simplification. To do so, he got back to the shell/ghost metaphor by proposing the following"

"So we put our minds together, and developed a creative publishing service simple and smart enough to make anyone an author – every blogger, cook, photographer, parent, traveler, poet, pet owner, marketer, everyone. (This means you.)"

"Low-cost, home-built 3-D printer could launch a revolution, say Cornell engineers"

"Letterpress, which became obsolete in the 1980s with the rise of desktop publishing, is experiencing a resurgence as artists and consumers rediscover the allure of hand-set type. It is still a specialty craft."

"According to MIT's Neil Gershenfeld, the digital revolution is over, and the good guys won. The next big change will be about manufacturing. Anyone with a PC will be able to build anything just by hitting 'print.'"

"It’s the desktop printer meets social software meets the fax machine, but in everyday life rather than the office. The printer is no longer a printer, it’s my social letterbox."

"This tutorial deals with printing up low cost t-shirts with your existing stencils using paint. There are many ways to print stencils up on shirts, silk screens etc, but this is the cheapest and easiest and only way that we have explored so far."

"What is a Print takes a Flash-based tour of the four most common methods of manually creating artistic prints - woodcut, etching, lithography, and screen print."

"The Rasterbator is a web service which creates huge, rasterized images from any picture. The rasterized images can be printed and assembled into extremely cool looking posters up to 20 meters in size."