‘A reconstruction of a printed sheet of Ken Garland and Robert Chapman’s game Connect, designed by Ken Garland and Associates for the James Galt Toy Company in 1969. Including an interview with Ken Garland conducted in 2006.’

This publication combines a reconstruction of a printed sheet of the popular board game Connect with an interview conducted at Ken Garland's home studio in September 2006. During the interview Garland referred to an interesting detail regarding the design of the game:

“Now, I want to tell you something that a lot of people don’t know. The clue to this game is the template from which all these tiles are cut. When the game came out a lot of companies started to make copies, there was an Italian company, somebody in the United States, Japan – they never seemed to get it quite right. [...] If they’d sat down long enough with the original and assembled it – worked out how it would have been layed up to be printed and cut – it wouldn't have needed too much ingenuity to figure this out.”

The response to this detail inspired the reconstruction of a printed sheet of Connect – and the beginnings of this publication – as an action that would illustrate an important part of the designing process; one that is linked to a knowing use and attitude towards materials available to the designer.

The interview touches on social and philosophical aspects that Connect (and games in general) might promote and is intended to work in conversation with the reconstruction. Supporting images, scanned from original pieces of the game, are included to clarify certain key points made in the interview.

This publication hopes to build on a continued interest in a notion of ‘designing as writing’, that is defined as using form and technical processes (connected to the designing and printing processes) as implicit to the understanding of the publication; form and production join content as equal voices within the presentation of the outcome.

Conception, editing, layout and typesetting by David Bennewith / Colophon
Text by Ken Garland and David Bennewith

Published by Colophon
Cat no. CLPHNP01
Distributed by Colophon in the Northern Hemisphere and Clouds in the Southern Hemisphere
March 2011
ISBN: 978-90-815569-1-0

Hardback
Offset, laser printing
Printed by Drukkerij Mart Spruijt, Amsterdam
Typeset in AG Book Rounded by Günter Gerhard Lange, 1980
8 pages plus colophon
Full colour and black & white images
English

Dimensions: 343 x 245 x 10mm
Weight: 538g
Edition: 500

NZD$20 / 10€