iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 31/08/2026

We have great talks coming up in our “Media Necromancy” speaker series this fall! On Oct. 30th @jameshodges.net will help us launch the Undead Media Lab with “Converting Consciousness into Digital Data: A Haunting History of Information Technologies” skeuomorph.ischool.illinois.edu/our-research...

Converting Consciousness into Digital Data: A Haunting History of Information Technologies
When: Friday, October 30th 12-1pm
Who: James A. Hodges, San José State University School of Information
Where: Skeuomorph Press, CU Community Fablab, 1301 S. Goodwin Ave. Urbana, IL 61801
Also: There will be snacks!
Additional note: This talk will also be part of our official launch of Skeuomorph’s Undead Media Lab!
A specter is haunting digital media— the specter of print. Presenting an overview of case studies from his forthcoming book Psychedelic Software (MIT Press, 2027), James A. Hodges will excavate the printed origins of contemporary ideographic and time-stamped writing forms in mid-1960s experiments with Xerox machines, a modified “lie detector,” and psychoactive chemicals like psilocybin and LSD. These media experiments, undertaken along the margins of MIT and Harvard by countercultural researchers heavily inspired by Marshall McLuhan, pioneered the translation of conscious experience into codified data using electronic information technologies. Although they were motivated by a quest for self-actualization, they also conjured up new forms of surveillance and alienation. Using tools like a modified polygraph or a printed checklist to track their spiritual awakenings under LSD, participants in these studies were tasked with recording their own deeply personal experiences as if they were business memos. By closely examining both the formal and political histories of these information practices, this talk will also reveal the legacies of exploited labor, prison research, mind control, and drug abuse that haunt now-ubiquitous forms of communication like social media and emoji.

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 18/06/2026

A big mail day at the press! First, some brand new type from Skyline for some upcoming student projects (& a few just for fun) Second, we finally have a Book Beetle 🪲 press from Josef Beery! We’re excited to use this for mobile print events & with school class visits! www.bookbeetlepress.com

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 02/05/2026

Today community from the Native American House joined us to print posters for the Red Regalia Project, which “seeks to honor the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives” The posters were designed by NAH Ambassador Ashlee Shoemaker (Diné) this semester nah.illinois.edu/programs/mmir

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 30/04/2026

This weekend Skeuomorph is honored to host a printmaking session in collaboration with the Native American House’s Red Regalia Project—NAH Ambassador Ashlee Shoemaker has been working with our GAs during open hours to design a postcard & poster for the community print nah.illinois.edu/programs/mmir

A stack of white post cards. On the left side is printed in san serif font, up to down, “NATIVE AMERICAN HOUSE.” On the left side is “RED REGALIA PROJECT.” In the middle top is a serif bold font reading “MMIR.” In the middle is a cut in black of a woman’s head, with long braids handing down on either side of her head. In the middle of the face is a red hand print.

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 10/04/2026

This morning @drtlwagner.bsky.social’s “Queering Information” class @ischoolui.bsky.social is here creating a collaborative class poster. So much fun with our new Vandercook 4T!

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 09/02/2026

New internet sorts from Skylinr Type Foundry arrived, for all your URL/social media letterpress printing needs!

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 20/01/2026

Skeuomorph’s spring semester 2026 public hours are set! We’ll be open Sundays 1-5, & Tuesdays & Wednesdays 5-9. If you have a project in mind or just want to experiment with our equipment and collections, come by during community hours to chat with our student assistants & get your hands inky!

In the foreground are trays of wooden type, and blurry in the background is a group of students in a circle working

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 12/11/2025

Now that our edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Rant About 'Technology'" is (finally!) printed, bound, packed, & with campus mail, on its way to folks, we’re making approximately 60 of the internal poster available separately If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...

A poster on white paper. In orange ink is an illustration of six matches, with a flame rising from the first four, reaching to the top of the page. In various fonts of wood type, black ink overprints the flames and reads:

TECHNOLOGY
IS THE ACTIVE
HUMAN
INTERFACE
WITH THE MATERIAL WORLD

In the bottom right corner is an attribution to URSULA K. LE GUIN

A stack of posters on white paper, with an individual poster sitting to the right of the stack. In orange ink is an illustration of six matches, with a flame rising from the first four, reaching to the top of the page. In various fonts of wood type, black ink overprints the flames and reads:

TECHNOLOGY
IS THE ACTIVE
HUMAN
INTERFACE
WITH THE MATERIAL WORLD

In the bottom right corner is an attribution to URSULA K. LE GUIN

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 11/11/2025

This past weekend Skeuomorph GA @divinetautology.bsky.social led a workshop for kids & parents as part of the "Spurlock Sundays" series in local museums & cultural orgs—participants drew designs & then overprinted them—the results are delightful!

Posters with hand drawn doodles, flowers, and more with

I
AM AN
ARTIST!

overprinted in large wooden type

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 31/10/2025

Two weeks from now at Skeuomorph. Come learn more about the history of Yiddish print in the US & make some cool prints!

A poster reading:

MIDWEST YIDDISHFEST
YIDDISH BLOCK PARTY
NOVEMBER 14 | 2:30-4:00 PM
SKEUOMORPH PRESS AT THE UIUC FABLAB
REGISTRATION REQUIRED
WWW.CUJF.ORG/YIDDISHFEST

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 18/09/2025

In today’s mail: two beautiful new mould & deckle sets from The Papertrail for hand paper making at Skeuomorph. One makes 8.5x11” sheets & the other 12x18”, we can make sheets for posters or large book impositions. Looking forward to trying them out in upcoming workshops & classes!

Two paper mould & deckle sets made of white plastic, with silver metal fixings on the corners. The bed has a mesh screen. The smaller one is open and the larger closed.

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 08/08/2025

Middle-schoolers in the FabLab’s printmaking summer camps designed cards using our risograph machine & prints using P22’s modular printing Blox—we’re bowled over by their results! dry-inc.com/products/p22...

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 20/02/2025

Thanks to a generous donation, we were able to buy two new riso color drums, so you can officially create 4-color riso prints at Skeuomorph! Prof. @ryancordell.org’s students experimented with pink & black for their zine lab today

Three risograph drums stacked up on a cabinet

A table with stacked copies of zine sheets in black ink layered over a neon pink background of leaves

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 06/02/2025

Our spring practicum students practiced lino carving & typesetting by making these lovely valentines with press GA @divinetautology.bsky.social !

Three valentines printed in red ink on brown cardstock. The top has an image of a flower and reads “Lucky You,” the middle has an image of a flower growing from a book and reads “with you, every chapter is an adventure,” and the bottom depicts a key and reads “you’re the key to my heart”

Three Skeuomorph students gathered around the Vandercook proofing press

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 09/09/2024

We’re catching school spirit working on a limited-edition print for UIUC’s Homecoming Week. We’ll be live printing at Saturday Night Live, this weekend (9/14)—come visit & make your own poster! homecoming.illinois.edu/schedule/

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 19/08/2024

We made Skeuomorph stickers today! Look for them at press events this fall!

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 12/04/2024

After a week of obsessive sorting & (re)organization, our 24 newly-acquired wood type fonts have been integrated with our existing collection, labeled, & arranged in cabinets For instance—we now have French Clarendon—aka wanted poster/Cowboy font—in many sizes. Come live your old west print dreams!

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 15/02/2024

There was a veritable symphony in the FabLab today, as Isabella Viega’s “Writing Across Media” students learned from our resident typewriter expert (i.e. Isabella) & experimented with our growing collection of analog, electric, & electronic typewriters

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 05/02/2024

A preview of our new broadside edition of Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “Strong Men, Riding Horses.” This edition is being printed by permission of the Brooks estate, as part of a collaboration with UIUc English’s Ninth Letter literary magazine. They will be numbered & put on sale soon.

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 30/01/2024

We were thrilled to welcome multiple sections of “Writing Across Media,” at the press today to learn more about the medium of print. We used “Ole Minty” (as Skeumorph GAs have begun to call our rescued green hand press) to print our popular Ursula K. Le Guin “A Rant About ‘Technology’” piece.

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 28/10/2023

Today we’re tabling at the CU Small Press Fest & test driving our new mobile print cart!

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 24/10/2023

New (to us) at Skeuomorph Press, this fabulous mobile printing cart. We’re looking forward to printing with y’all at campus & community events. Come try it out for the 1st time at Small Press Fest CU this Saturday! illinoislibraries.wixsite.com/smallpressfe...

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 14/09/2023

It looks like tomorrow's the big day—our new (to us) Washington press is moving across campus to Skeuomorph. We'll be ready to print in much larger formats (up to 20"x30"). As a ghost impression still on the tympan indicates, the press was used at some point in the 1930s to print the CU Weekly News.

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 05/09/2023

For our three workshops with Writing Across Media classes this week, we created a custom cut to accompany William Henry Davies’ poem “The Kingfisher,” in support of UIUC students’ advocacy for a new mascot. Check out the link for more on their campaign! kingfisheruiuc.wixsite.com/uiuc

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Skeuomorph Press & BookLab @skeuomorphpress.org · 29/08/2023

Hello BlueSky! We are an experiential studio for teaching & researching the history & art of the book at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Learn more at skeuomorph.ischool.illinois.edu & come visit us during community hours if you’re local!

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