Office Offset

Office Offset is a research project by Jan Blessing, consisting of a continuously growing archive, a website, and an experimental print workshop.

After training as an offset printer, Jan graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig with a Master’s diploma with honours in Graphic Design and Book Art. In 2016, he co-founded the graphic design studio Book Book together with Constanze Hein and Felix Walser in Berlin. The studio continues to work in close collaboration with clients to turn ideas into designs. Focused on publications, websites, identities, and ephemera, their work is driven by an interest in typography, material, colour, and various printing techniques. In addition to their design work, the expertise of the studio also includes holistic consultation and managing and monitoring of printed products.

Office Offset marks Jan’s personal research field in which he explores the future of offset printing as an artistic-experimental printing process.

The term ‘Office Offset’ describes fully-equipped miniature offset printing machines that are the size of an office photocopier. What distinguishes them from the printing industry is the fact that they actually never belonged to it. Office Offset, instead, is a duplication process, much like a mimeograph, a photocopier, or a Risograph. These top of the line machines achieved the best printing quality and the highest print runs for almost 20 years, and were used all over the world especially in Europe, South America, and South Asia. Despite these factors, this technology did not stand up to the easier to handle Xerox copier, and disappeared completely in the late 1980s. Along with the demise of this technique, records related to it also disappeared. It would not be an exaggeration to say that, today, it is a forgotten print/duplication process from the late twentieth century.

The rediscovery of these fully capable miniature offset machines marks a new era of experimental offset printing. By de-contextualising the former intended usage and in conjunction with modern technology, Jan aims to transform a former duplication technology into an experimental printing technique, which offers a vast amount of options to explore offset printing, without the restrictions maybe given by a commercial printing company.

Jan’s Office Offset print workshop currently houses a Rotaprint RTE, a Roto/Rotaprint 613 N, a Roto 613 S, and a Roto/Rotaprint 625 (for Flexo Office Offset). The workshop is on-hand to help with all sorts of experimental exploration, and are open to collaborations with artists, institutions, and publishers. In addition to print projects, the studio also offers workshops and lectures for students or anyone else who is interested in the unique machines.

@office_offset
www.officeoffset.com

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