Embossing

Today, I spent a lot of time with the press. I used the laser cut stencils I made of the to-scale iPhone home screen to create touchable components of the zine. However, they are completely devoid of color. I experimented with three types of paper which could survive the pre-emboss soak, but I liked the whitest of them the best.

I found white to be compelling because colors are a huge component of what make apps so enticing and notifications so bothersome. So, I aimed to create an entirely different sensation of their shape by inviting touch in a whole different dimension.

In my experiments, I made some images that maintained the order and identity of a classic home screen, or an order that I could best achieve. The press did move things around a bit. But in others, I let chance create a new composition. The icons are immediately recognizable, but what happens when we break them down into their components? What happens when we observe phone behavior only through the lens of touch? I find these cross sections very interesting.