The web has the underestimated capacity to be printable.
In the age of screenshots, generating a PDF from a website could become a method of encapsulating content, allowing for deferred reading without an internet connection. It could also be a way to create an archive of our favorite online contents that withstands the test of time, a more enduring material than the ever-shifting online world. And even more, it could allow us to envision a world where the Web could also be used to craft hybrid publications that look and feel as good in print as they do on screen. Nevertheless, the default outcome of hitting Ctrl + P in the web browser is often disappointing.
For about a decade now, designers have addressed this issue and developed techniques allowing to design documents with the web languages in order to be printed directly from a web browser, using the standards of HTML and CSS.
The workshop will serve as an initiation into these Web-to-Print techniques, starting from Media Queries specifications and extending to the implementation of Paged.js, a free and open-source JavaScript library that formats content in the browser to generate PDF output from any HTML content..
Bérénice Serra is a media artist and researcher holding a guest professor position at the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW.
Her practice explores the act of making things public within the context of post-digital networks. Her research focuses on the aesthetic and sociopolitical issues of the contemporary experience of public space with consideration of digital devices and technical infrastructures (smartphones, servers, platforms, etc.) as reticular means of publication and new forces for emancipation.
Graphic designers, students and creatives who would like to discover new perspectives on web and print interoperability. Of particular interest to people working in the publishing industry.
Learn the basics of HTML and CSS web languages
Learn how to adapt your web projects for printing using a polyfill
Learn how to design a printable document in a web browser
Reflect on the possibilities and limits of web-to-print techniques
The Institute Digital Communication Environments (IDCE) offers workshops for students, educators and graphic designers.
The workshops afford insights into topical themes of visual communication for analogue and digital communication channels in a study programme reflecting the rich tradition of the Basel School of Design. Practical exercises with a high level of professionalism form the core of the workshops focus. Reflection as well as contextual knowledge will be conveyed by way of input sessions, allowing participants’ work to be judged within a contemporary, future-oriented context relevant to professional practice. The trinational Rhine River Valley is a unique cultural environment with easy access to France and Germany and to sites such as the Vitra Design Museum (G), the Isenheimer Alter (F), or Ronchamps (F). In Basel, the Fondation Beyeler, Tinguely Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Schaulager, and Museum of Contemporary Art are world-renowned. Besides its museums, Basel offers a rich mixture of cultural events.
