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Creating a Big Mess Out of Everything
No. 11
With Nigel Ewan, Dempsey Ewan, Cole Londeree, and Alan Alanis
Nigel and Dempsey are the brother and sister publishing duo who bought a Risograph printer and got obsessed with what it could do. Big Mess is their ongoing experiment in slow, intentional print-making: a publication that exists not to build a brand or announce a point of view, but to get better at the craft of making things. It's deliberately light-hearted, deliberately unsponsored, deliberately itself.
Nigel and Dempsey are joined by Studio Freight's Cole Londeree and Alan Alanis, the team behind the guest issue (along with Matthew Roop, Evan Vollick-Offer, and Aaron Marks). Together, they talk through what makes Big Mess unusual, what it took to translate that sensibility into print, and why the messiness is the whole point.
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DD
Tell us about Big Mess. What makes it special?
NE
I think Big Mess is unlike a lot of other projects in this space. Dempsey and I talk a lot about these vanity side-hustle type projects where it seems like people are doing things for the self-promotional value, or just to look cool. Big Mess is like the opposite of that. We’re really doing it just for the fun of doing it, and we probably ought to be thinking more about promotion than we are.
A big part of what makes it cool is that it was born out of a genuine desire to make a Riso-printed publication with five years of experimenting, refining the process, and trying everything the medium has to offer. It's meant to be slow-burning and substantive, building a community around people who share that curiosity and patience.
A big part of what makes it cool is that it was born out of a genuine desire to make a Riso-printed publication with five years of experimenting, refining the process, and trying everything the medium has to offer. It's meant to be slow-burning and substantive, building a community around people who share that curiosity and patience.
“A big part of what makes it cool is that it was born out of a genuine desire to make a Riso-printed publication”
Nigel Ewing Big Mess
DE
A lot of Riso printers focus on the idea of small publishing, doing work for other people. That was something we thought about at the beginning and kind of said no to. We wanted Big Mess to be a selfish project, a platform for our own work and interests, separate from Clatter Press,?? where we print for others in a purely mercenary way. So alongside everything Nigel said, it really does lean into the craft side for our own curiosity, not anyone else's agenda.
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DD
How did you land on the name?
NE
I don't remember there being any other choices. It was suggested kind of at random — my oldest daughter was high-chair age around the time we started, and that’s where she made a lot of big messes. The idea of a mess is also really central to what we do at Clatter Press. To clarify, Clatter Press is the production side of the business and Big Mess is the publication.
We've had ongoing issues with customers thinking Riso printing is cool without understanding how truly messy and unpredictable it is. Even when the techniques are executed at their highest level, it's still messy. So the name keys into the print process itself. And it rhymes with Clatter Press, which we liked. She was onto something.
We've had ongoing issues with customers thinking Riso printing is cool without understanding how truly messy and unpredictable it is. Even when the techniques are executed at their highest level, it's still messy. So the name keys into the print process itself. And it rhymes with Clatter Press, which we liked. She was onto something.
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DD
For the uninitiated, how does Risograph printing work — and how does it shape everything you make?
NE
I like to describe it as similar to screen printing, but a little more systematized, which lends itself to a graphic design mentality. We’re working with premixed spot inks that come in a variety of colors, and when you’re doing risograph, it’s impossible to avoid thinking about these inks. No matter how you create your artwork, at some point, a human being needs to consider how the visual elements translate to those actual printed inks — if you're printing a grayscale piece, you can choose any color we have, so that’s easy; if it's multicolor, someone at some point needs to think carefully about how the art will be translated into the physical print.
Most graphic designers rarely use spot colors at all these days, and even when they do, they're maybe just running a single spot color in addition to regular process printing. Nowadays, designers can just make something on a computer screen and never think about the inks that go into producing those visuals — so they aren’t really creating work with an “ink” mindset. But with Riso, it's only spot inks, every time. As a pre-press person, that's genuinely exciting. It forces a creative rigor that almost no other print context requires today.
Most graphic designers rarely use spot colors at all these days, and even when they do, they're maybe just running a single spot color in addition to regular process printing. Nowadays, designers can just make something on a computer screen and never think about the inks that go into producing those visuals — so they aren’t really creating work with an “ink” mindset. But with Riso, it's only spot inks, every time. As a pre-press person, that's genuinely exciting. It forces a creative rigor that almost no other print context requires today.
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DD
How did you first encounter Riso printing?
NE
Tom Hoying,?? a fellow CCAD graduate, had a zine that was printed with fluorescent pink, which is the classic Riso ink. As a graphic designer, you see something out of gamut and you can immediately tell it's not offset, it's not screen print. So I thought: what in the heck is it, and how do I get it? That was probably twelve years ago. It's insane how, at that time, there were no YouTube videos about it — maybe one or two blog posts on eHow from people who didn't even own the machine. The community has exploded since then, but back then you were completely on your own.
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DD
Looking back, which issues are your favorite, or most successful?
DE
One of my favorites is Plants.?? It's interesting because it might feel simple — a lighter content issue — but it's really cohesive and it looks beautiful. It has some really lovely illustration work and these fun pieces of creative writing from someone who pitched us out of the blue, and who we ended up becoming friends with.
I also love Trash from this past year. The format is an envelope that's made to look like junk mail, with a lot of different pieces tucked inside. It feels fun and tactile in a way that makes sense for the subject. And then we have an oversized issue called Puzzles from during COVID — coloring pages, crosswords, really interactive. Those are some of my favorites that we've edited ourselves.
I also love Trash from this past year. The format is an envelope that's made to look like junk mail, with a lot of different pieces tucked inside. It feels fun and tactile in a way that makes sense for the subject. And then we have an oversized issue called Puzzles from during COVID — coloring pages, crosswords, really interactive. Those are some of my favorites that we've edited ourselves.
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NE
For me, the word "successful" is really loaded, because I tend to weigh it heavily toward the craft side. Stretch — which we did last fall — is one of the best ones in my opinion. I printed it with red, blue, and a bit of black, with halftone screening throughout, which is difficult to do successfully on the riso. Although there were just two colors, we were able to get a wide range of effects thanks to the dialed-in pre-press: some features relied on the stark red and blue contrast, and others used a range of red and blue neutrals. It’s the sort of nuance that we’re only able to achieve after years and years of doing this. What made it especially satisfying was that a former colleague shot the photos for one feature, and he knew the ink colors we were using — but I didn't tell him to shoot red and blue. That was just a creative symbiosis. The dominoes lined up.
Plants, as Dempsey mentioned, is also one of my favorites for craft reasons. We took full-color traditional illustrations with really beautiful palettes and ran a four-color separation with fluorescent pink, mint, yellow, and black on cream paper. It was a very creatively satisfying pre-press process to take the source material and see it transform that way.
Plants, as Dempsey mentioned, is also one of my favorites for craft reasons. We took full-color traditional illustrations with really beautiful palettes and ran a four-color separation with fluorescent pink, mint, yellow, and black on cream paper. It was a very creatively satisfying pre-press process to take the source material and see it transform that way.
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DD
There's a tension you've talked about between what makes a great piece of content and what shows the print process well. How do you navigate that?
NE
Our Pets edition is a good example of that tension. Conceptually it was really fun, our friend Michelle Maguire?? guest-edited it and she just kept getting people on board so it became this chunky issue full of surprising stuff, very much her voice. Content-wise, it’s incredible, but from a craft standpoint, it doesn't show the print process very well because it was put together by someone who didn’t have first-hand experience with risograph pre-press.
That's not a criticism. It's just what happens when outside contributors aren't tuned to the requirements of the medium. We're still figuring out how to set the right parameters upfront without being control freaks about it. It's not about control — it's about the stated goal of showing what this process can actually do.
That's not a criticism. It's just what happens when outside contributors aren't tuned to the requirements of the medium. We're still figuring out how to set the right parameters upfront without being control freaks about it. It's not about control — it's about the stated goal of showing what this process can actually do.
DD
How did this partnership between Studio Freight and Big Mess come about?
NE
The honest answer is that Dempsey and I were burned out on the editorial schedule. We did a studio move last year and it was fatiguing on top of everything else. We started talking about doing a guest-edited issue again, and the idea of working with someone a little more digital and less in the overt print world felt interesting. I thought of Studio Freight because you already understood what Big Mess was, which goes a long way. And we think you guys are cool. The personal relationships in this network are pretty strong between all of us, and that matters.
DE
It was also way more professional and organized than Nigel and I are normally capable of being with Big Mess, so that was a nice change.
CL
For me it felt like a return to origins, in a really satisfying way. I cut my teeth on print. Danielle and I worked together fresh out of college when the work was much more print-forward. And so getting to stretch that muscle again, doing layouts for an actual physical piece, was genuinely exciting for the whole team.
AA
I'd add that the challenge of balancing a lot of voices on our side was new. We're usually driven by a client, a single decision-maker who keeps us on pace. Having to work together internally in this more horizontal way, with everyone contributing ideas and no one person driving it, was a different kind of process. A little harder, honestly. But I'm pretty happy with how fast we moved once we landed on a direction.
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DD
How did Studio Freight land on Letterforms as the editorial theme?
CL
Big Mess themes are always one word — something short, subjective, that can be laid onto a lot of things as a lens. We were trying to find something that felt unifying for a team spread across different countries and different stages of their careers.
Letterforms felt native to what we do without being generic. There was enough flexibility — protest lettering, tattoos, the history of type, photography of letters in the world. We also wanted it to feel connected to the editorial tradition of zines: rough, form-over-function, not everything needing to be perfectly legible. Alan's piece on protest lettering, for example, is something you feel as much as you read.
Letterforms felt native to what we do without being generic. There was enough flexibility — protest lettering, tattoos, the history of type, photography of letters in the world. We also wanted it to feel connected to the editorial tradition of zines: rough, form-over-function, not everything needing to be perfectly legible. Alan's piece on protest lettering, for example, is something you feel as much as you read.
AA
I think the impulse for some of us was to stay really literal and design-insider about it, but that would have felt too narrow. Letterforms let us go wider into culture and history, and into the kind of work a design studio touches but doesn't always get to explore on its own terms.
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DD
What didn't make it into the final cut that you wish had?
CL
I really wish I'd had more time to get into the history of the Zanerian College?? here in Columbus. It's such a rich story and it would have fit perfectly. That one stings a little.
NE
On our side, we talked a lot about having some kind of digital component, like leaning into what Studio Freight does that we simply don't do at all. That didn't materialize, but I think it's the obvious thread to pick up if we do another collaboration down the road.
AA
Generally, more time. We moved fast, which I'm proud of. But there were things we started building out that never got fully fleshed out.
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DD
What's the next issue of Big Mess?
NE
The theme is Patterns. We've already got a written feature on bird migration patterns from my wife's cousin, some fashion design and garment construction content, some literal visual pattern work. That's the Big Mess logic of taking one open-ended word and push it in as many directions as possible. The sillier and more multifaceted the better.
DE
I just did an interview with Nat Della Selva,?? who's a CCAD alum with a background in pattern-making and garment construction. She's doing independent small publishing, teaching sewing classes, a lot of interesting things. She's exactly the kind of contributor we love — someone I knew vaguely through school, always thought was doing cool things, but never had a real reason to reach out to. Big Mess gives us that reason.
DD
Where do you see Big Mess going from here?
NE
My dream is honestly just that more people would know about it. More people experiencing it physically, not on a screen. If we had more subscribers, we’d also have a slightly bigger production budget. For us, that probably means we’re still losing money on each issue, but there’d be more room for experimenting. Better paper, more interesting binding. And a real feedback loop. We spend so much time on these issues and then put them out and maybe get a LinkedIn thumbs-up from someone who doesn't subscribe. That's not a complaint exactly, but it's the gap I'd most like to close.
“the dream for Big Mess is to grow is the quality of the craft.”
Dempsey Ewing Big Mess
DE
I think the dream for Big Mess is grow is the quality of the craft. There's always more room to experiment inside the constraints we've set. That's what excites me. A lot of things in design have this energy of, if I just had a little more resources it could become something much bigger. Big Mess isn't like that. It's just going to keep getting more itself.
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