Spindle

A second hand record shop with two thousand titles and a photocopier in the back. Art Chantry worked with a scalpel and a copier and never a computer. Copy a halftone, copy the copy, and the dots break into blotches. The degradation is the artwork, not a filter over it.

Client
Fictional, self-initiated
Sector
Second hand records
Scope
Mark, output rules, in-store, screen
Method
After Art Chantry
Built
CSS filters and turbulence
01

The mark

A fat slab with the spindle hole punched through the middle of it. The hole is knocked out of the paper, so it takes whatever the mark is sitting on.

Primary lockup, second generation

The hole
Three tenths of the cap height, dead centre, knocked out. It is never filled and never a printed circle.
Generation
The mark is output, copied once, and the copy is used. A clean vector mark is not the mark.
Colour
Ink on manila. Red is available for the mark only on the fascia, and only because paint does not photocopy.
Never
Never redraw the degraded edges by hand. That is imitation, and it looks like it.
02

The generation

Everything goes through the machine twice before it is used. First generation is the output, second is what prints, third is what happens when somebody copies the poster on the wall.

Generation

First
Laser output. Sharp, even, and never used for anything a customer sees.
Second
One pass through the copier. This is the house standard and what nearly everything is printed from.
Third
A copy of a copy. Used for the window and for anything flyposted, because it holds up under a bad light.
Registration
The red drifts further with each pass. Between two and five millimetres, and never corrected.
03

Colour

Manila stock, one black and one red that only ever appears as a stamp. The blue is for the listings sheet and nothing else, because it is the one thing people take home.

Manila#CBC3AEThe stock. Bought in bulk from a catering supplier, not a paper merchant.
Copier black#201D18Never solid. At second generation it is closer to a dark grey with holes in it.
Stamp red#A83226A rubber stamp and an ink pad. Prices, sale flashes and nothing else.
Duplicator blue#4A5A6BThe monthly list only. It exists because the machine that prints it takes one drum.
04

Typography

A fat slab for anything shouted and a typewriter face for everything else, because the listings were typed on a real one until 2019 and nobody wanted to lose the look.

Shout
BevanNew in
Section
Bevan 22Soul and funk
Copy
Courier 15 / 26We buy collections. Bring in a box and we will go through it with you, and we will tell you honestly which four of them are worth anything.
Price
Courier 700VG+ · 12 pounds · plays clean
05

Applications

Everything is A4 or a fraction of it, because everything comes out of the same machine in the back. The bag is the only item that is printed properly, and it is printed badly on purpose.

March list Two hundred and forty in
  • Nera – Two Winters (LP, VG+)14
  • Static Kings – Faultline (7in)6
  • Halo Wire – s/t (LP, VG)9
  • Blank Pages – Drift Test (12in)11
  • Ilse Brandt – Ghost Cell (LP, NM)22
  • Various – Cellar Tapes (CS)4

Typed on the second of the month. Prices hold until it runs out, which is usually about a fortnight.

Monthly list, A5, duplicator blue

New inSellingListFind us

Two thousand
records

Open Tuesday to Saturday. We do not do postage and we do not do discogs prices.

This month's list

Website

Paper bag, 12 inch

Window poster, A3, third generation

Price sticker, 40 mm

06

What breaks it

All four of these produce something that looks like the real thing at thumbnail size and falls apart the moment it is printed and pinned to a wall.

×
Do not use first generation Clean output has even edges and a solid black. It reads as a template with a texture on top, which is exactly what it is.
×
Do not correct the register Snapping the red back into place removes the only evidence that two passes happened.
×
Do not spend the red Red is a rubber stamp. Set as a headline it stops being a stamp and starts being a brand colour.
× Spindle
Do not print on white On white stock the greys have nothing to sit against and the whole thing reads as underexposed rather than copied.