A bit more background for the House of Annetta Newsletter/Kitchen Rag, its beginnings, concerns and systems for more DIY collectivised design processes.

Slow + Dirty Press and House of Annetta members began gathering in May 2024, after HoA tentatively invited SDP to be the press in residency at the house. Annetta Pedretti, the previous occupier of 25 Princelet street had a printing press *you can read more about it here, today the house’s new residents often work in her steps, honouring the projects she began behind these walls and beyond.

A pressing material House of Annetta wanted to put out was a paper newsletter, distributed locally and bypassing algorithmic logics of social media. A lot happens at the house that isn’t recorded but this would be an attempt to physically publicise and simultaneously archive some of the many events, meetings, conversations, findings that come out of the space. In the spirit of Annetta Pedretti, who intentionally stripped back the layers of the building to reveal its history, we intend to work in ways which make process visible=creation accessible.

When designing the layout and systems for the newsletter, I was trying to think of ways different house users could contribute to it without having too much need for centralised design work. I tried hanging a hand-drawn (less intimidating?) skeleton of it with instructions and link to an online pad. I tried making a version on Canva (do more people know how to use Canva/free/simple over Photoshop/paid/complex?) accessible via QR-code printing across the house. The template can be accessed in various places and formats to encourage more people to fill it in, spread the workload and diversify authors. Over a year of newsletters built with different systems, we’ve resorted to a shared Creative Cloud file a couple of us edit each month. This is definitely not the only way or the most desired way, but the one that’s been used more lately. The search for an always more participatory design system continues. ^-^

First collage version + Cat helping with the process

“The Kitchen Rag” hung in the kitchen with instructions for participation

First digital layout tests, depending on the business of the day, boxes can spread out or be squeezed.

Issue 0 acts as a launching manifesto for the House of Annetta newsletter and community press (at that stage we don’t have a Risograph yet and print over at LCBA while we wait on the house’s floor boards to be repaired). Read it here

Issue 01: The rag is made by collaging printed and drawn materials + scanned and printed directly on the Risograph

House of Annetta Newsletters/Kitchen Rags issues 00, 01, 02, 09, 12