The fourth volume of PUB was recently released, in all its fluorescent green glory, at the End of the Year Graphic Design show. The student designers of PUB examined and responded to contemporary tropes in graphic design as part of a class with faculty members Anther Kiley and Michael Worthington: examining, embracing, and questioning cultural clichés.

PUB number 1 came out in Fall 2007 and has since had something of a sporadic existence in CalArts design culture. Stemming from thinking, research, and writing in a Publication Design elective class—most often under the direction of faculty member Gail Swanlund—PUB has always been something of an independent runt amongst the litter of design publications. All too often its been a difficult birth, taking two or three years to fund and produce each issue. PUB 4 has been a while coming, and had its own struggles.

Pub 4 began with Anther Kiley teaching the Publication Design class in Fall 2015 and developing a series of research, writing, and design projects with BFA and MFA students on the theme of design tropes. The content produced in Fall was shaped into a book by a smaller group of students continuing working in the Spring with Michael Worthington. The contents ended up including writing, visual research, original design, an interview with Norman Klein, and a series of “metatropes” made especially for the book. While individual tropes were examined separately by each student author, the publication as a whole acts simultaneously as a critical rejection, and a visual furthering of, the tropic zeitgeist.

PUB 4 was delivered a few hours before the EOY show opening, with Mina Shoaib and Monique Wilmoth hastily hammering in the nails to get the wall display done at the last minute (thank you). It was nice to have the smell of fresh printer’s ink at a graphic design show! This issue of PUB was funded by the Graphic Design program’s Winter Institute program, and 250 were given away free to alumni and faculty and students at the opening. PUB participants in Spring who collaborated to put the publication together were: Margaret Andersen, Nadia Korepanova, Jessica Lee, Jimin Kim, Caroline Renzleman, Mina Shoaib and Monique Wilmoth.