Scott Boms: Notebook Dispatches

Preview detail of a spread from a forthcoming zine project currently in production I’m working on several zine/book projects at the moment, and now have the first in production. It’s only taken about four years of second guessing, losses of momentum, and restarts to get to here, but it’s finally found a form that works. Of course, stripping the idea back to the bare metal is what helped it finally click. The plan, as much as there is one, is to have this and at least one more ready in time for…

I’ve barely had time to look at the hundreds of photos I took while in Japan since we’ve been back, but my eye caught this one today from the deer park in Nara, one of the most naturally charming places I’ve maybe ever visited. It’s a good reminder that there’s beauty to be found in the little, often and easily ignored moments in a day. You just have to slow down and look. I needed that today. And come on — look at how beautiful that manhole cover is! Reply via e-mail or follow me at…

A tool that shields us from the friction of the work is compelling, but if we don’t experience the friction, we will never change the work. Rutherford Craze In my mind, earlier consideration of disruption from digital tools now seems so quaint and naïve by comparison to the effects of so-called “artificial intelligence” on traditional human-centric creative processes. Rutherford makes a clear, cogent case for why keeping humans at the center is critical. He goes on to astutely note, How dare we…

Japanese craft is rooted in specificity. Each object and solution is considered in its own context. That mindset often prioritizes appropriateness over efficiency and precision over scale. Kyosuke Nishida Having just returned from 12 days in Japan, immersed in their incredible history and culture, this quote from creative director Kyosuke Nishida feels both apt and also true. Westerners could learn a lot from how the Japanese approach not just design, but infrastructure, community, and shared…

I suspect I’m going to return from Japan with a lot of photos of temples and little architecture details since that’s what I find myself gravitating towards when traveling. This trip is already proving to be a good source of photos to (finally) start fiddling with the Aphera beta, which immediately made me want to erase all memory of Lightroom from my archives. Location Info Senso-ji Temple, first built in 942 AD before being destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt in 1973. Reply via e-mail or follow me…

Behind the storm of daily conflict and crisis, the dramatic confrontations, the tumult of political struggle, the poet, the artist, the musician continues the quiet work of centuries, building bridges and experience between peoples, reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding him that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide… John F. Kennedy From a moving speech by former president John F. Kennedy on November 29th, 1962 as part of a…

Early in my career (another life really), the company I worked at was doing a lot of work for Canada Post so I got to see firsthand what would go into producing new stamps. Those little rectangular pieces of art require so much care and consideration to get right, something that I think has stayed with me and influences how I work. Art & Design Culture can give birth to something that hasn’t been seen, hasn’t been appropriated, hasn’t been followed to death. Naz nails what the real untouchable…

A myriad of mostly painted signs in the studio. Although I’ve hung up my brushes, I’m lucky to have amassed a nice little collection of painted signs of my own making and from esteemed artists such as Caitlyn Galloway, Damon Styer, Heather Hardison, Kristin Farr, David A. Smith MBE, and Jeff Meadows that now adorn the walls throughout the studio alongside prints and other ephemeral items in my collection. That didn’t stop me from making a little studio sign1 yesterday afternoon. This was mostly…

If things have been unusually quiet here for the last several weeks it’s because I’ve been occupied with rebuilding the studio to make it better arranged to support the type of work that most often happens within its walls. At the same time, I’ve been working on a long-gestating idea to rename the imprint through which my studio output enters the world. The new Risograph ME9450U in the Matter Editions production studio. When I acquired my first Risograph in 2020, there was no plan. I didn’t…

Outside the David Geffen Galleries building on the LACMA grounds in Los Angeles. I had a plan for last weekend’s brief visit to Los Angeles to attend the opening show of Rush’s Fifty Something tour, but had to adjust those plans to accommodate a dear friend’s wedding which took place the day before the gig (note: this was unquestionably the right move). Our original travel plan was to fly down to LA early Saturday morning and jet around the city for an architectural tour of Frank Gehry…

I’ve more or less finished the studio rebuild other than a smaller secondary project to add a small loft storage space that will help get a few more things out of the way. Improving the space has made it feel more organized, flow better, and just generally be more enjoyable to be in. And — it’s got me back in a mood to be making things, starting with helping a good friend with a few things for their upcoming nuptials tomorrow, and a little mini print for myself that’s ready to go. Footnotes…

Granting the frailty, and no doubt the impermanence, of modern technology as a human contrivance, the man who can keep a fire in a stove or on a hearth is not only more durable, but wiser, closer to the meaning of fire, than the man who can only work a thermostat. Wendell Berry Wendell Berry has become a bit of a spirit guide for me, someone whose writing always teaches me something and opens my mind to things I’ve never considered. Although the book’s central theme is a deeply personal…

… The machine appeared In the distance, singing to itself Of money. Its song was the web They were caught in, men and women Together. The villages were as flies To be sucked empty God secreted A tear. Enough, enough. He commanded, but the machine Looked at him and went on singing. R.S. Thomas Welsh poet R.S. Thomas frequently referred to mechanized and materialistic society as the machine, an apt metaphor that holds up even today despite Thomas passing in 2000 — his life barely glimpsing the…

These classic General Dynamics posters are a thing of beauty and it’s fascinating to watch them expertly repaired and restored. They’re considerably larger than I realized too. Art & Design RYBitten is a fascinating tool (and accompanying visual playground) that filters RGB colors to create various painterly variants based on historical color systems. … The big successes at the moment are the publications that speak to a very specific reader, but that are also galvanizing the influence to bring…

…those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. C.S. Lewis I seem to be going through a period of “heavy” books at the moment. Currently, Wendell Berry’s The Hidden Wound preceded by Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine, which has less to do with AI than you might think based on the title, though this nugget from C.S. Lewis wouldn’t seem out of place in current conversations about the extractive effects technologies…

The more machines there are to replace men, the more men there will be in society who are nothing but machines. Louis De Bonald I’m currently reading Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth which, despite being only 60-odd pages in, is a more personal book than I would have guessed and proving to be interesting, and not unrelated to my continued research for the follow-up to Context Window that will hopefully pick up steam over the next few weeks. This quote from French philosopher and…

Although I didn’t pay much attention to the others, this is now the third or fourth large oak in the neighborhood park to give out during a recent storm. I don’t know why consciously why this one grabbed my attention, but maybe it simply feels representative of that sinking feeling that’s been lingering about how things are going in this country, broadly in the industry I’m a part of — and how I think things are going to continue feeling for a while. The dog and I did enjoy the rest of our…

My weekday ritual almost always starts with making a latte, showering, and then making my way down to the train to journey to San Francisco. Most days I use that time to quietly read or sit with my thoughts. And when I say read, I mean actual paper books — the kind that have defined edges, weight, and where you can visibly gauge when you might finish. I’ve tried eBooks several times and there’s just something about the experience that I find fundamentally off-putting. No comment about audio…

Until recently I’ve had very mixed feelings about what The Mandalorian and Grogu movie might actually be about and how it was being presented in the, until recently, limited marketing. This behind the scenes with Adam Savage and Jon Favreau is increasing my confidence in what I hope will be a fun and inventive new type of Star Wars adventure — in part because of the great care and attention to design details. Art & Design Trees don’t pay off tomorrow. They pay off in a decade. They compound…

It’s been a while since I’ve added a new color swatches book/project to my collection and Daniel Mellis’ Risograph Barycentric Color Atlas is a doozy as it visually explores color mixing across twenty-four sets of 3-color combinations comprised of 13 ink colors on the Risograph. This approach really does a good job of showing off how Riso inks mix, and Daniel’s unusual book format also demonstrates printing on larger sheets than are commonly used with the Riso. I also discovered he’s designed…

I’m trying something a little different this week with an intentionally design/creativity-focused edition (more in the direction of where this whole thing might go post issue 300) — including this fun start to finish build of a stairway box by the always inspiring Ido Agassi. Art & Design Posters are a visual representation of the vernacular of a place and its culture. But they are also cemented in time through the character and message of t...

In the absence of critical thinking, we become vulnerable to over-influence. Jess Henderson I remain skeptical about AI in a broad sense despite quite a bit of firsthand experience using it in myriad ways. I can see its usefulness as an engineering partner for quickly prototyping ideas, but I also see how it starts to collapse quickly as you move beyond that. I’ve purposefully avoided it as a writing partner, but see its potential to help organize and outline thoughts. And I’ve seen ...

If you had asked me what song Rush would perform during their first Junos appearance in (checks notes…) 2026 — track one off their self-titled debut album, circa 1974 would never have crossed my mind, but it’s perhaps a brilliant choice for the debut of drummer Anika Niles in place of the late and arguably irreplaceable Neil Peart as the signal of a new beginning. Art & Design When design is covered with rigor and nuance, it changes how the ...

Last night I completed work refurbishing the last of the six ink drums for my Risograph ME 9450U duplicator following a marathon afternoon session on Sunday essentially rebuilding nearly all the other drums to re-check and replace the light absorbing strips on each. The aftermarket versions proved to be incompatible with this particular machine. The ones used on drums for the EZ391U machine worked fine though. These light absorbing strips are used by the machine to detect when a mas...

What Lies Ahead is the third track released from Peter Gabriel’s forthcoming album O/I. I had no idea he had performed it during the tour for his previous album I/O but it’s a lovely song that almost feels like a spiritual successor to Don't Give Up. Art & Design The announcement of Art + Water from Dave Eggers and JD Beltran is a bright spot of news in the Bay Area and I hope will be a catalyst to reinvigorate the arts community that’s been...

It’s been a good visit back to Toronto, spending time with my eldest who’s attending university, as well as my sister and her family, my parents, and also some old friends. It was also nice to get back to (the newly renovated) Massey Hall for the first time in many years to see Matt Berninger— and (opener) Hannah Georgas, who I’ve been a big fan of for many years but had never managed to see live until now. She did not disappoint. Reply via e-mail or ...