Happy new year to everyone! January is already steaming ahead and the Archives have been busy from the moment we opened our doors again after the holiday period. Just before we broke off, there was a lot of activity around an exhibition entitled 'The Incredible Lightness of Being - Jiří Pelcl – Czech Design' that opened here at the Grand Parade Gallery on the 6th of January. To go alongside this major exhibition, Professor Jonathan Woodham (co-curator of the exhibition) also came down to the Archives to choose Czech posters from the ICOGRADA collection to be exhibited alongside the main exhibition. Seventeen of these are now on show in the main corridor and reception area of Grand Parade for the duration of the Jiří Pelcl exhibition.

In other news, this year marks Helsinki's appointment as the third city to carry the title of World Design Capital. Here in the Archives, we are at the beginning stages of building a digital resource to celebrate the Finnish materials we have in our collections. This is especially exciting for me personally as it gives me a chance to familiarise, research and get nostalgic about these materials from my country of origin! It also ties in nicely with the WDC initiative as we hold in our collections the ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) archive. ICSID are the organisation the World Design Capital event operates under, deciding which city gets awarded with the title every two years. In 2012, Helsinki is not only the Design Capital of the World but has many other reasons to celebrate; it has been the capital of Finland for 200 years this year, Helsinki-Vantaa airport turns 60, the National Theatre celebrates its 140th and the National Ballet its 90th. 

And to add to the celebrations, my blog turned a somewhat more modest 1 this week. Perhaps it really is time to bake a cake and pop open the champagne!

 Czech posters 10 Jan 2012 4:44pm

Just before we all break off for the holidays, I wanted to share with you some joyous Design Archives' news! There has been a bit of theme forming with my 'poster posts' of late, but after a long wait the large format Melinex has arrived and we have - with much cheering - ceremoniously hung the first poster in the new large format cabinet! 'The Happy Man of Finland' has had the privilege of being the first one in and this occasion just could not go by without notice! I am sure you would all agree to him looking very comfortable in his new surroundings, incidentally advertising the 3rd Poster Biennale in Lahti in 1979 with his grin. And so my poster theme forms a full circle...

As this will be my last post this year the entire team here at the Design Archives want to wish you all a nice relaxing time over the holidays and a very happy New Year indeed!

Left: Design Centre poster, 1960. Design Council Collection (GB-1837-DES-DCA-10-1-93). Right: Design Centre poster. Design Council Collection (GB-1837-DES-DCA-10-1-196).

 Season's greetings 22 Dec 2011 1:47pm

Yesterday we hosted a 'Digitisation of Archival Content - sharing expertise' seminar. This was a free afternoon event with an aim of giving the participants an insight into the care and digitisation of archival materials - a little bit of a 'behind the scenes' peek into what we do, if you like. The Design Archives planned and organised the event in collaboration with the Heritage Lottery funded 'Floating Memories' project run by Paul Farrington.

Image: Five members of our nine-strong Design Archives' team with Andy Hawkins from ICAM in the discussion panel.

We structured the day's talks by members of our team around the 'lifecycle' an archival item goes through when prepared for digitisation - from collection management, conservation issues and the physical digitisation of an object, to cataloguing and dissemination of the digital file, finishing on digital preservation. The event was attended by a great mix of people from undergraduate, post-graduate and doctoral students to people from the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. The question and answer session afterwards sparked up some interesting conversations about the future of digitised materials. As the digital age is still finding its feet to a certain extent, the importance of looking after the originals was highlighted. Naturally the great success of digitisation projects and the way in which they open up archives to people unable to visit were very much applauded and we obtained some very positive feedback from the attendees.

Recently I have been talking a lot about the big poster project I am in the middle of, mainly because it is making me want to work 24/7 - but the Design Archives are not all about gorgeous graphic design, images and photographs! A few weeks ago I got to work on a document repair on a letter from the Design Council collection that needed attention.

Image: The letter before repairs.

This document has had its bottom third sliced off and put back together with a piece of sellotape that had become very brittle and loose with time, risking the bottom half of the object falling off and getting lost within the file. The sellotape piece was very dry, so the removal of it was very easy. The staining left behind by the adhesive is pretty significant but as I have said before, all that can really be done about this is to scrape off any remaining residue.

Image: Removing the brittle tape and scraping off the remaining adhesive residue.

The bottom third of the letter was then re-attached by using wheat starch paste. This is a paste made with wheat starch powder and water by cooking the two together to form a white paste. The starch powder is highly refined but has the look of your ordinary flour. Wheat starch paste is generally used in paper conservation for flat paper and book-hinge mending as it is completely reversible and different consistencies of it are used depending on the task in hand. Once the mix has been made, it should be strained through an undyed, unbleached, natural fibre fabric such as muslin, to eliminate any lumps. The final paste should be stored in the refrigerator and should not be kept for more than a week. As the paste does not stay usable for very long, it is best to make it in small quantities.

I went to some considerable lengths to obtain the paste to be able to do this particular repair as I do not (yet) have paste-making materials here. Though I have since done some research into making paste in the microwave, so I will hopefully experiment with this in the new year and report back to you.

Image: The letter after re-attaching the bottom with wheat starch paste and repairing small tears along the bottom edge.

While it was important that this document got the attention it desperately needed, for me it was also a welcomed change from working on the large scale posters. That being said, I can not wait to have the chance to continue the repairs on the awaiting pile of posters when the opportunity arises! The poster project will continue well into the new year just around the corner and as we have been very busy with researchers of late, the space limitations are dictating the pace I am able to pay attention to them. We are also still awaiting on the elusive large format Melinex to arrive - so in the meanwhile I am repeating the ever familiar 'patience, patience' -mantra.

 Seminar 08 Dec 2011 1:43pm

Image: Martha and I busy surface cleaning Swedish ICOGRADA posters.

On Monday the 14th, I had the pleasure of a visit from Martha, a friend and a fellow conservation graduate from my year at Camberwell. She is a conservation intern at the Parks Library & Archives Preservation Department at Iowa State University. She is also one of the contributors to the preservation/conservation blog at the institution should you be interested in reading what goes on behind the scenes at a well equipped conservation facility on the other side of the Atlantic.

Image: The difference between a surface cleaned and non-surface cleaned area at the verso of a poster.

She came down to Brighton for a day and offered an afternoon of labour with us at the Design Archives, which we simply could not refuse. We started work on the large format posters and made very good progress with them; documenting, surface cleaning and repairing a good handful of mainly Swedish posters at this time.

Image: Martha removing a masking tape 'repair'.

There were, of course, a few cases of tape removal thrown in for good measure. Martha brought me a tool which I have to admit to not having used before - a crepe rubber! Rather excited about this slightly odd material that is very good for picking up adhesive residues. Crepe rubber is basically a crude form of natural rubber and is most often used to make shoe and boot soles. As well making our boots less slippery, as Martha demonstrated, it works wonders in removing those stubborn sticky residues left behind on the surface of the paper when the adhesive carrier has been removed. It can also be used for removing excess rubber cement.

Image: Demonstrating the use of crepe rubber on adhesive residue.

I am now, of course, looking forward to an object in my stack of 'to do' posters I can really test it on.

And to finish this blog post off, I would like to bring to your attention that in support of Movember, the Design Archives have compiled a selection of images of designers with moustaches from our collections. You can see this fantastic set of images, amongst others, on the Design Archives' Flickr page.

 A special visit 16 Nov 2011 1:51pm

Re-organising the main archive space we work in alongside our researchers has been no mean feat, but we are now getting there - slowly but surely. The long-awaited new cabinet for the large format ICOGRADA poster materials arrived from France at the end of last week and due to our meticulous calculations, fitted perfectly in the space allocated for it. We are now waiting for the large format made-to-measure Melinex sleeves to arrive and once these come in, the surface cleaning and repairing of the materials can step up a gear.

Image: Light entertainment - my colleague Barbara Taylor retrieving the tape rolls placed inside the new poster cabinet.

As you can imagine, due to the size of the posters, we are running out of flat surface space to place materials on, and it will be a great sigh of relief from everyone once the posters start to slot into the new cabinet. As a part of the re-design of our working space, we are also going to be re-housing all of the smaller scale ICOGRADA posters currently stored in horizontal plan-chests in the vertical poster cabinet. Once empty, the removal of the plan-chests themselves will free up more space in the middle of the room. This means a third desk can be placed in this 'researcher space'. More flat table space also means that minor conservation works on the posters can continue possibly even when researchers are in.

Image: Suzy Horada surface cleaning an Italian poster from the ICOGRADA poster collection.

Suzy Horada has been a great help in the conservation process by giving me a hand in surface cleaning. For most of the materials so far, we have been able to use a Mars Staedler rubber directly on the surface of the paper due to the strength and thickness of the paper used and the stability of the printing inks. However, a selection of the posters are printed on more fragile paper. In these cases, a chemical sponge and/or grated rubber has been used for the removal of surface dirt.

I have been repairing tears from the verso with heat-set tissue as well as filling in torn corners and other missing areas. An issue with this particular collection has been the general use of adhesive tapes (mainly sellotape and masking tape) in earlier 'repairs' as well as in attachments of labels to the verso of the materials. Sadly in some cases, the staining left behind by the adhesive has also seeped through to become visible from the recto of the print. In a handful of posters, some tackiness was also left in the adhesive mass after the backing was carefully removed. In some of these cases, I am using fibrous cellulose powder to aid the removal. With most of the posters, the tape has already turned brittle with age and fallen off, leaving behind a dried up yellow mass and stain. I have been removing the remaining residue by carefully scraping it off with the aid of a scalpel. 

Image: Using fibrous cellulose powder to try and eliminate tackiness of the adhesive mass left behind after removal of the tape.

In conservation laboratories, the Teas chart can be used to visually locate effective solvents or solvent blends for given polymer-resins in a systematic manner. The chart gives an indication of suitable solvents according to their three components of molecular interaction - polarity (fp), hydrogen bonding (fh) and dispersion forces (fd). Resins left behind by adhesives can be easily removed when fresh, but as you can imagine in conservation, this is generally not the given situation. Due to oxidation, resins tend to move towards being more polar meaning that more polar (ie 'stronger') solvents need to be used. The most commonly used solvent groups in paper conservation are the aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, ketones and alcohols.

Image: The Teas Chart.

If this has sparked anyone's interest in reading more about adhesive tapes and techniques for removal, there is a good overview article you can read in the Journal of the American Institute of Conservation.

 An update 08 Nov 2011 2:25pm

On the 11th of October myself and my colleague Barbara Taylor attended a training day entitled 'Preserving historic photographs' at the British Library Centre of Conservation. The day was run by Susie Clark, an ICON accredited photographic conservator, and was designed for those with responsibility for care of photographic collections regardless of institutional context. From a personal perspective, it was quite reassuring to realise that a lot of the history of photographic processes was still stored in my mind from over ten years ago when I did a BTEC National Diploma in photography before the BA degree here at Brighton.

The workshop started by running through steps of recognising different types of historic processes with samples for us to look at. Photographic materials deteriorate in a variety of ways depending on the original process. I found it especially interesting that during the 1950s, cellulose acetate was used widely in the manufacture of photographic film. The deterioration of this leads to the distinctive 'vinegar syndrome' - a very recognisable smell at which point the autocatalytic deterioration of the material is beginning.

Conservation issues are clearly different to standard paper conservation challenges due to the different metals and chemicals used in coating and sizing of photographic papers and negatives. Silver is the most commonly used metal in photography, but platinum and gold have also been used historically. Glass deterioration can also be observed in glass plate processes such as daguerrotypes, usually stored in glass cases creating their own microclimates, and wet collodion negatives. Interestingly cyanotypes are known to fade drastically when exposed to light for long periods of time, but their colour has been observed to come back when re-stored in the right conditions.

The workshop then ran through identifying suitable conservation treatments for the different types of materials. The most important consideration was highlighted to be preservation, ie. storage conditions. This is especially important in storing negatives and film containing cellulose nitrate, a highly volatile chemical which can catch fire on its own accord at a relatively low temperature of 38c. Recommended storage solutions for photographic materials are either pH neutral papers and boards with a high cotton and undetectable sulphur content or plastics, of which Melinex is the most commonly used as it has passed the Photographic Activity Test. Photographs should not be stored near a photocopy machine as these give out deteriorating ozones. Interestingly I did not realise that you can, and should in some cases, also freeze-store photographic materials by using sealed conservation quality polyethylene bags.

A fact I found rather wonderful was that already in 1855 a 'Fading Committee' was put together, supported by Prince Albert. Even after only a few decades of this wonderful medium, there was concern over its longevity!

If you are interested in further reading about preservation and conservation issues, The British Library Preservation Centre have published a series of preservation guidance booklets that can be downloaded free of charge. Included is the booklet on preservation of photographic materials written by Susie Clark.

 Preserving Historic Photographs training day 14 Oct 2011 12:39pm

Image: The new Design Archives store before the shelves were once again filled. 

Time seems to fly by so fast! The students have come back this week and there is a real buzz to the Faculty again. Despite some of the building works here in the basement of Grand Parade still continuing, our new archival store is ready and in use - the rolling shelves have been installed and are once again filled with materials!

The Design Archives team have made a decision about the best way to store the large format posters I have mentioned in earlier posts. We are waiting to hear back from a suppliers in France about the new storage unit. In this, we are looking to place not only the largest format ICOGRADA materials but also the parts of this collection currently stored horizontally in plan-chests in the main area of the Archives. The arrival of the unit will also give us some room to re-organise the Archives' 'main space' in which our ever-increasing team and researchers work in - with some strategic shuffling, we are hopeful that we may even have the space to accommodate more than two researchers at a time.

Other news that I have been excited about this month is that we have purchased a roll of Archibond archival heat-set tissue and a tacking iron for the Archives. Once the storage unit and large Melinex sleeves for the posters arrive, I can begin the task of surface cleaning and repairing the more damaged poster materials. It will make the most sense to do this work before the posters get placed in the Melinex sleeves, which will be a task in itself due to their size and the way in which Melinex works by holding objects placed within it by static, preventing slippage - Melinex is an uncoated polyethylene terephthalate polyester known for its strength and chemical stability and is widely used by archives and museums. Once the posters have been re-housed, we are hopeful that there won't be a need to come out of the protective sleeve. This will not only prolong their life but will also make them easier to handle with less stress placed on the paper itself when moving. The conservation work is, however, entirely dependant on a researcher-free day in the Archives as it will require a large table surface for me to work on. And now that we have the supplies on the premises, minor repair projects on areas of the other collections will also become possible if needed.

 Start of autumn 30 Sep 2011 3:30pm

The Max Gill exhibition at the University Gallery has now finished. It is a somewhat sad feeling seeing all the artworks wrapped up and the walls of the gallery empty (if only for a few moments). From reading the comments book in the Gallery, it appears that the public very much enjoyed the experience of the exhibition too. Here's hoping the works will get a new lease of life at another venue as soon as possible! The MacDonald Gill digital resource created to compliment the exhibition has now been officially published. As an extra part of the resource, I have created a section within it inviting you, the 'general public', to share your stories and experiences with the works of Max Gill and becoming a 'living' part of the resource. Should you wish to contribute, there is a simple form for you to fill within the resource.

Image: The rolling shelving being disassembled in the 'old' storage area.

The building works here at the Design Archives are moving swiftly on despite a few hiccups along the way. We are now at day 20 of the move and during this time the collections within our 'old' storage area have been carefully packed by the movers and are stored temporarily elsewhere in the building. We are currently at a stage where almost all of the major building works have been finished and the removal and reassembling of the rolling shelves is taking place. The builders have done a great job in re-inventing our new storage area and the Link51 archival shelving team have, for the past two days, been busy taking down the rolling shelving from the old storage area and moving it to the new space, bit by bit. Once this has been completed, all of the shelving surfaces will need to be thoroughly cleaned before the collections get put back in. We are hopeful that the move will be finished on schedule before the new term starts.

Image: The new storage area before rolling shelves are installed.

While all of this has been going on, myself and Suzy Horada have been making the most of the students' summer holidays and have spent considerable time in the photographic studio continuing the digitisation of the ICOGRADA poster collection as mentioned in my last blog post. To date, we have managed to digitise around 200 posters in total. This is a great asset added to our internal database and eventually another great addition for our area on the Archives Hub. We are going to continue this major digitisation effort at least well into next week, which also sees colleagues returning from maternity leave and longer holidays - The Design Archives will be operating a full house again.

Image: Poster for the Jolie Madame Boutique (Swiss), from the ICOGRADA collection. (Detail). Catalogue number GB-1837-DES-ICO-3-30-68.

 End of an era 02 Sep 2011 3:51pm

Image: Entrance to the Gallery, University of Brighton.

So, the Max Gill symposium and exhibition opening have taken place and the show is well and truly up and running. I have been looking at people within the gallery when I have walked past the space, and it has been wonderful to see them really studying the works. The symposium on the 22nd of July, 2011 was a great success. It was eye-opening and very interesting to hear so many different papers given from a wide selection of points of view. The private view that evening was very well attended and it was wonderful to speak to so many people about the show and how it came to be.

Image: Commonwealth War Graves Commission Headstone from Formelles, France. Headstone for an unidentified soldier. The stone was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and described in the Kenyon Report, 'the headstone should normally be 2ft. 6in. in height, 1ft. 3 in. in width'. The epitaph 'A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR KNOWN UNTO GOD' was written by Rudyard Kipling. The lettering is 'Headstone Standard Alphabet & No.4', designed by Max Gill. Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

As August is well on the way, it is strange to think about the amount of work and effort that went into putting the show together when the team are now busy organising the taking down of the show at the end of the month. I thought I would take the opportunity to post up a few photographs from the exhibition for those of you that might not get a chance to visit but would like to see a glimpse of what the space looks like.

Image: A small corner of the extensive exhibition.

Things here at the Design Archives have remained steadily busy, as they always tend to despite the summer holidays. After months of planning and organising, we are currently in day three of a seven week project upgrading our archival accommodation for the parts of the collections we currently hold in a store room next door with the Screen Archive South East. The project has been carefully planned by a team of people from different areas within the University and the building works are taking shape slowly.

Image: A selection of the larger format posters from the ICOGRADA collection, measuring at 1280 x 900mm.

The new storage area will remain on the same floor but will have environmental controls installed, which is going to greatly improve the conditions in which the collections are housed. We are currently concentrating on working out the optimum way in which to store our over-sized posters, of which there are just over 100. These are the largest objects we have in our collections with the dimensions of 1280 x 900mm. These, and a selection of other posters from the ICOGRADA collection, will also be catalogued, surface cleaned and digitised by myself and our ex-volunteer-turned-summer-employee Suzy Horada in the coming weeks. A small selection of them also need to be repaired as edges have become torn with time.

Image: One of the more beautiful finds within the ICOGRADA collection ready to be catalogued, cleaned and digitised.

We moved the posters from the store to our 'main area' yesterday and had a chance to see some of them in greater detail for the first time. There are some really beautiful, colourful posters within the stacks - I can not wait to have a closer look at them as we start to work more closely with them. I will also be writing more about the upgrade in our storage as the works get on the way - these are rather exciting times indeed!

 The latest 10 Aug 2011 11:31am

Image: A text detail from 'Highways of Empire' (1927) poster that caught my eye and made me smile.

Last Tuesday marked the finishing point for all of the conservation work that myself and Melissa Williams have been busy with for the forthcoming Macdonald Gill exhibition. The last piece we worked on was the alternative 'Highways of Empire' item I wrote about in an earlier entry - the mounted on plywood version of it will be making its way back to its owner.

Image: Laying out the case items before glass panels get placed on top. 

The project has now slowed down from my part, but the gallery is busy with the activity of hanging up the work and filling the cases. As this week draws to an end, I have had a chance to reflect back on the past seven or so months that I have had the privilege to be a part of the exhibition team. By being involved with this project, I have taken on many new conservation and digitisation challenges that will all continue to feed into my work and forthcoming projects here at the Design Archives. It has also been an eye-opening experience to be involved with the 'behind the scenes' side of putting together a major exhibition of archival objects. Other challenges within the team have varied from the logistics of coming up with a narrative and deciding which objects to include in the exhibition to 'smaller' tasks such as picking up paint colours for the entrance wall and cases. I have luckily also had the chance to indulge in my love of maps by working literally very closely with some of the pieces to be shown at the exhibition.

Image: Detail of some of the case items in the exhibition.

The case items are being put in their rightful homes by Andrew Haslam and Philippa Lyons as I type this, and the gallery is taking shape. For the case items that have needed weighing down, a nice detail has been added. Instead of using glass weights or photo corners where needed, Andrew Haslam came up with an idea to use typographic spacing material for letter press printing to weigh corners down. These objects are little lead squares also referred to as '4x4s' and they seemed a very natural choice to use.

Image: Typographic spacing material for letter press printing used as weights to make sure all objects are flat within the cases. They are also used to number the items.

This of course then proposed a conservation issue - using a lead weight directly on top of archival materials is not ideal. To avoid the lead touching the paper directly, we have created little squares from archival paper. These have been placed on the lead and work as a 'guard' between the weight and the works, protecting the originals. The works in the cases are also numbered in this manner.

Image: Still wrapped up and waiting to be hung. This particular piece is one of the very few facsimiles used in the exhibition. The original piece: Painted wind gauge map panel, Lindisfarne Castle, Holy Island, 1913. 

The gallery technicians David Cooper and Steve Mace are very busy putting the works on the walls. I have been in and out of the gallery today watching it all slowly taking shape and I can not help but walk around the space with a smile on my face - I am so pleased and feel very lucky to have been a part of it all.

With technical help from Michael Wilson, I am also in the process of building a digital resource to go alongside the exhibition. As a part of this, I am aiming to launch an area within it built solely on people's personal experiences of or with Macdonald Gill's work. If you feel like you have a story you would like to share and therefore become a part of this project, I would love to hear from you!

The exhibition opens next Friday 22nd of July and will be launched by Peter Barber, Head of Cartographic and Topographic Materials at the British Library. It continues at the University Gallery until the 31st of August, excluding the August Bank Holiday Monday.

 Taking shape 15 Jul 2011 1:57pm

Image: Westhampnett Church WW1/WW2 memorial lettering designs. The artwork is for the First World War and the addition for the Second World War.

The Macdonald Gill exhibition team have been busy going through all of the items that are to be displayed in the cases within the exhibition. There will be ten display cases in total to be placed within the gallery as well as one outside in the main foyer of the University's Faculty of Arts entrance. These cases will hold a total of around 180 items from flat paper-based pieces to a selection of Max's tools and his beautiful large format camera.

Image: The bottom left corner area of the piece with the archival tape attaching the original artwork onto the mount board and the original piece of black tape holding together the two separate pieces of paper along the edge.

One of the pieces that has caused a bit of a last minute change was due to go into case number seven within the gallery. This is an original piece of artwork for the Westhampnett Church First and Second World War memorial lettering designs. The top half section of the artwork is for the First World War memorial with an addition for the Second World War attached to the bottom. The dimensions of this piece are 305x365mm and it has been window-mounted on archival board sized 510x625mm. Due to the large size of the mount board, it was decided the object was too large to go into the case as it is.

Image: Lifting the WW2 section of the piece.

The private owner of this particular piece has informed me that detaching the original sketch from its mount board would be OK with her. This prompted me to have a closer look at the object - it has been mounted onto the archival mount board with the use of archival tape in all four corners. As you can see from the image above, the original item itself is created from two separate pieces of paper. These are only attached together by a small (non-archival) piece of black tape running along the left side edge near the middle of the piece where the two sides meet.

The paper is not only very soft, but also torn and damaged. This is especially evident along the edges of the black tape attaching the two sides of the artwork. Because this is the only adhering element between the two pieces, I questioned how safe or sensible it would be to remove the original from its backing board to be placed in the display case for exhibiting purposes. The archival tape pieces holding the original to the backing board are very solid and tacky, so the removal of these would have also required some careful conservation work. It seemed to me unnecessary to remove this object from its professionally and safely finished window mount.

Image: The original tape attaching the WW1 and WW2 sections together.

After some deliberation, we have decided that we will replace the original by using a facsimile of it in the exhibition case. This of course meant I was to digitise the original piece. Due to its large size of the mount board however, the digitising needed to be done in two sections - our scanner here in the Design Archives was not big enough to enable a 'continuos scan'. I carefully attached the two digitised halves together in Photoshop, making sure not to lose any of the information within the piece in the process. The file has been taken to the printers and this facsimile will be sitting in case number seven in due course!

Image: Digitised  Westhampnett Church WW1/WW2 memorial lettering designs. Here you can clearly see the difference in the shade of the paper between the two halves.

 Westhampnett Church War Memorial 13 Jul 2011 4:44pm

I was doing a check of the bug traps I had placed around the Archives today and found this 'catch of the day'. It's a somewhat unpleasant discovery first thing in the morning but it's good to observe that the traps are doing what they are meant to be doing.

On the Max Gill front, things are moving ahead at a quick pace - there's only a few weeks left until the symposium and the exhibition opening. We have one last poster to take up to the conservation studio - this is a rather last minute addition so I thought I would write about how we have gotten to this point.

The object in question is Max's 'Highways of Empire' poster from 1927. The original plan was to use a version of this poster attached to a piece of plywood approximately 8mm thick. Prior to this piece arriving in our store, a conservator had attempted to remove the poster from the plywood but this procedure was abandoned due to the fragile nature of the paper. Potentially, the plywood could be removed by chipping away the wood from the reverse, layer by layer. Backing removal is usually done in this manner, but I am not entirely sure how effective this method might be when the backing in question is plywood. If anyone reading has any experience in this, I would really appreciate you letting me know how you got on! Either way, as you can imagine, due to the size of the piece (1525x1020mm), removing the plywood in this manner would be a very long, laburous and costly procedure and with the time limits we are now working with, is most definitely not an option.

Image: The state of the bent plywood the Highways of Empire poster is on as stored on the premises.

Myself and the rest of the exhibition team tried to come up with a way the plywood piece could be hung safely - this could possibly have been done by inserting blocks to the back of the piece and attaching it to the wall this way. However, this immediately raised several concerns. The safety of the surface of the print was the main concern - as the plywood the poster is on is very bent, 'framing' it under glass would be impossible without creating a 'glass box' for it, and this would have obviously created cost and safety concerns. The plywood is also in a rather brittle state, so attempting to place blocks on it could have been potentially disasterous. The aesthetics of the whole exhibition also needed to be taken into consideration, as all other objects will be uniformally framed and are flat in nature. After considering all the options, the idea of using this particular piece in the exhibition was quickly scrapped.

Image: One of many cracks on the supporting, brittle plywood the poster is attached to.

The image itself was still required for the exhibition and we have sourced an alternative from the archive where a lot of the work in the exhibition has come from. This version is slightly different in that the text panel running along the bottom of the print is not the same. Thankfully the dimensions remain roughly the same - this came as a great relief for the team as the object will still fit onto the wall-space allocated to it.

As the version of the poster that will be used is rolled up inside a tube, it will need to be taken into the conservation studio for a surface clean and flattening procedures. I have unrolled the item once to have a quick look at its condition, which is very good. It is interesting to observe that the original colours of this particular piece are not as vibrant and lively as a lot of the other work I have been dealing with and I wonder why Max would have made a decision to use more subtle colours in this instance. Organising a suitable date for the necessary work to take place within the time restrictions we are all now working with has been no mean feat, but everything has worked out very smoothly and we have found a date for next week. After the conservation, the poster will be rushed off to the framers and framed in the same manner the other larger format pieces.

It's a close call but with a bit of good old-fashioned team work, it does look like we are getting it all done on time.

 Catch of the day 06 Jul 2011 10:43am

Bookworm. The first image that probably comes to mind would be people that have been nicknamed 'bookworms' for spending days reading entire libraries of materials. Instead I am talking about beetle larvae, nicknamed bookworms, that can cause havoc on anything paper based in libraries and archives. As their name suggests, they are especially fond of the glues used in the bindings and spines of books.

Image: A spine and bindings of a book effected by bookworm damage.

Bookworms love an environment that has high relative humidity. There are several types of worms found but they are generally about 0.1 to 0.2 inches in length. An infestation can be difficult to get rid of and is usually detected when some damage to the materials has already occured. This is due to the fact that if a library for example is not used on a regular basis, the bugs can easily go undetected inside the books. 

Image: Bookworm droppings that came out by gently tapping a book spine that had been effected by the larvae.

Once detected, but if live larvae is not present, the affected areas need a very thorough cleaning. Individual items should also be thoroughly cleaned by using a museum vacuum. Since bookworms love a damp environment, the objects should then be aired. The most efficient way of thoroughly drying them would probably be to freeze the affected books individually in vacuum bags after cleaning. And as with any other conservation process, it really pays to be patient and treat a book at a time.

When live larvae is present, the objects and areas affected should of course also be very thoroughly cleaned. There are some methods suggested on the web and in conservation literature in regards to how live larvae and eggs should be treated. I don't personally have experience in this. A single book can, for example, be treated by putting it in an air-tight container/box surrounded by cotton wool soaked in ether. Treatments should be repeated every few weeks to make sure the eggs are also killed. The eggs are usually present at the edges of the cover on the spine and the hatched larvae usually tunnels up the spine and makes its way directly under the cover of the book. The damage caused is normally visible as small holes on the spine or pages of the book.

Image: Spine and bindings after a thorough cleaning with a museum vacuum.

Also, to clarify - although the inserted images are taken by me, they are not taken of books stored at the Design Archives or in the Max Gill collection of objects for the forthcoming exhibition.

 Bookworm 20 Jun 2011 1:25pm

Image: Front cover of the folded 'Wonderground of London Town' map, Max Gill, 1914.

I have been working my way through digitising Gill's 'Wonderground Map of Londontown' from 1914. This is a very large piece of work that is going to be displayed at the exhibition folded up in a case as this is how the map has originally been intended to be stored.

Image: 'Wonderground Map of Londontown', Max Gill, 1914. Unfolded.

The item is formed of 16 individual pieces of paper approximately the size of a standard A4 sheet. These have been adhered to a linen backing that is very flexible but when viewed laid out, leaves small gaps between the 'folds'. The intention of scanning this piece is to be able to put the poster 'back together' digitally after scanning each of the pieces individually. This would then create a full digital file constructed from the pieces that will look as seamless as possible.

I should also mention that the item itself is in an incredibly good condition - apart from a tear on the back cover. The colours are so vibrant they could have been printed yesterday and there are no tears or other damage to the map papers.

Image: Detail of the folds created by the linen backing and the individual map pieces.

The scanning part was very straightforward as the piece itself being quite happy to bend, with care, in different directions due to the linen backing being in very good condition. The part where the whole process has obviously become a little more like a wild mathematical equation is with my attempts at stitching the item back together digitally. Edges are not marrying up easily despite it looking like a relatively simple job. This is definitely due to the slightly busy nature of the piece and should be done a little bit at a time to avoid losing all track of the whole process!

Slowly does it.

 Wonderground 10 Jun 2011 2:45pm

I picked up on the interesting story in the papers on the 9th of May in regards to the Museum of Rouen in France handing a perfectly mummified Maori head held in their collections since 1875 back to New Zealand. Sweden, Norway and Germany were also amongst the countries that have returned Maori remains to the delegation before they headed back to New Zealand. How this particular Maori head came to be in the French museum is uncertain and New Zealand has been requesting the return of all of her relics across Europe since the 1980sand since then, around 320 objects have been sent back.

This story was widely picked up by press all over the world and though not paper-related, these types of museology issues really interest me personally. Returning relics to their country of origin is a complex challenge that has many political, philosophical, cultural and at times spiritual and/or religious issues attached. Different countries have different laws on cultural artefacts but should it be the right of the originating country to request objects back?

You can read more about the story on several sites on the web but for the basics on the story, you can visit the BBC website.

 Returning relics 18 May 2011 9:56am

Looks like the last of the Gill pieces in need of conservation attention from our end have now been completed! Yesterday, Melissa Williams and I worked on the remaining items that consisted of six pieces that make up the plan for the South Africa tapestry from 1932 and the 'Tea Revives the World' piece from 1940.

Image: Two examples of the six separate plans for the South Africa tapestry.

The South Africa tapestry pieces were watercolour, ink and pencil on a heavily sized paper that has an almost rubbery surface to it. The background of the image appeared printed on and watercolours were painted on to fill in the colours.

Image: Recto of a tear in the corner of one of the South Africa tapestry pieces.

Image: Verso of the same torn corner. This had been 'repaired' using a piece of white tape, which was very easy to manually remove. This was replaced by a repair using heat-set tissue.

The watercolour areas on the tapestry plans were very fugitive, which meant that surface cleaning was only done on the areas not coloured. We used rubber to clean these areas. It was interesting to observe that with this type of waxy paper, all of the surface dirt sits quite neatly on top of the paper surface and is not let in to penetrate any paper fibres. Has anyone else out there worked with items like this?

The 'Tea Revives the World' piece is on a much softer and pourous paper that can be damaged much more easily. We did however assess that it was strong enough to not need backing, which is what we originally thought we might end up doing. Both this and the South Africa tapestry pieces were made their own Melinex sleeves ready for transport back here to Grand Parade.

Image: Detail from the 'Tea Revives the World' poster from 1940 that specifically caught my eye. Russia fought the eastern border of the already independent Finland further inland to the west in The Winter War of Finland in the same year. I am also surprised to find our capital called by its Swedish name, Helsingfors.

The pieces will get picked up from the conservation studio tomorrow and will then join the rest of the items we have conserved for framing. The number of objects we worked on, conservation-wise, has totalled at 34. This is obviously only a fraction of the material chosen for the exhibition - some objects are being conserved elsewhere and/or brought in from different places.

The next big push will be for the cases to be built for the items that will be exhibited this way. We are currently on a mission to determine how many of these items will need glass weights to secure curling corners to keep the items happy in the cases - the objects most likely in need of some help will be a selection of the photographs on show. A selection of the other materials will be heavy enough to be placed in the glass cases as they are.

 Tea and South Africa 17 May 2011 4:31pm

Image: Max Gill's 'Schneider Trophy' poster from 1929.

Going back to how marks and details at the verso of a print or a piece of original artwork can be just as interesting as the finished piece on the recto, I have a really lovely example for you. Above you can see Gill's Schneider Trophy poster from 1929 and I thought I would show you the verso too.

Image: Found on the top right corner on the verso of Max Gill's 'Schneider Trophy' poster from 1929.

Personally I absolutely adore the printed image on the back, but then I do have a bit of a thing about old advertising images! I wonder if all of the posters were printed on this type of 'headed' paper or if this particular piece was a test run that was printed on paper they were reluctant to waste?

 Recto v. verso 13 May 2011 3:59pm

This time of year is very hectic at the Faculty of Arts as the graduate exhibitions are due to open in a few weeks' time - there is a definite sense of excitement around the building that makes everything take on a kind of new level of commitment!

Whilst I have been busy continuing my day-to-day duties in the Design Archives, my involvement with the Gill project has been a little on the quiet side over the past few weeks - until this week! In the meantime, decisions have been made about pieces that are going to be exhibited in cases rather than hung and from what I can gather, wall space and the sequence of the items being hung is also very close to being finalised. This week I have determined any additional Gill works that will need conservation attention and scheduling this work in for next week. I have also been consulted on the best way in which the items in cases should be secured.

Image: The studio set-up in which we photograph larger archival materials too big for our scanners, located at the Photographic Unit here at Grand Parade.

Yesterday I spent the day in the studio photographing the objects that were conserved by myself and Melissa Williams in the first selection of objects needing conservation attention. We do the digitisation using the medium of photography as opposed to scanning by having a set-up of two flash units to assure even lighting. This also means that there is as little exposure to continuous light as possible, minimising any long term light damage to any colours in the long run.

Currently the objects are stored in their own individual made-to-measure Melinex sleeves that are sandwiched between two very large pieces of plywood strapped together. Due to the size of the items, this is to not only protect the works during transportation but to encourage the flattening process further while the works are in storage with limited space. This type of care makes not only all the conservation work worthwhile, but makes the items easier to handle and to eventually frame. Transporting the works from our storage area to the photography studio on the second floor safely required some major team work!

After the large items had gone through a flattening process, handling them on your own is close to impossible. For the photography to be done safely, I needed an extra two pairs of hands to help me. The large scale items were done in the morning with the help of my colleagues Barbara Taylor and Madeleine Meadows. I decided against photographing a few of the pieces due to their size and the weight of the paper as I had concerns about their safety using the T-pin system. In the afternoon I finished photographing the smaller objects on my own, after which all of the works were taken back to storage prior to framing. Some of the this will be done in-house by Dave Cooper but the larger items are going to be delivered to a local framing shop.

What I wanted to do was to use Gill's 'European Aerodromes' poster from 1930 to do a little test with. This poster was small enough for me to scan but I also wanted to photograph it to compare the two different digitisation processes.

Image: Detail from 'European Aerodromes' poster at 200%. Photographed using a Mamiya 6x7 camera with an Imacon digital back.

When digitising by using photography a lot of the very fine details on objects get lost in the process, despite using a high quality medium format camera with a digital back. With a digital photograph of this nature, colours seem a little more subdued compared to 'reality' and the focus always appears to be a lot softer than it should be. This could of course also have something to do with my eyes and the ability to focus the camera properly! A lot of the surface detail appears to get lost, and the object can look very two-dimensional and flat. This method is, of course, a suitable way in which to digitise objects that are not likely to be enlarged to anything bigger than their original dimensions.

Image: Detail from 'European Aerodromes' poster at 200%. Scanned using Epson Expression 10000XL.

Scanning with high quality equipment gives the objects a lot more detail and therefore makes them somehow more alive; colours tend to be more vibrant even before any adjusting is done on Photo Shop to get the digital file as close to the original as possible. I have scanned items before where there has been a tear or a hole - and when the scanning is done to a high standard, you can almost feel the paper fibres on screen when zooming in to the details. The surface of the object  has a three-dimensional quality to it when you are able to see the roughness of a surface - almost like looking at it through a microscope. Scanned objects like this then have the potential to be reproduced even bigger than their original dimensions without losing too much of the information in the process. Scanning sometimes makes me feel as if I am making objects a little bit 'over-realistic'.

Either way, these types of issues should be taken into consideration in archives and museums that are dealing with digitising flat pieces of work. Of course the quality of a digitised item is also dependant on what it has been digitised for. I personally feel that if you are going through the process of digitising materials, the time it takes should be used efficiently and the aim should be to create a digital file to a very high standard. This also means eliminating having to scan or photograph an object more than once by having a good quality, high resolution file from which to work from. This can then be re-sized and used in many different ways - from possible reproductions to publications, databases and the web.

 Digitising Gill 10 May 2011 4:34pm

 

On a light note for a Friday afternoon -  this compass from the corner of Max Gill's 'Post Office Wireless Stations' poster from 1939 has to be the most beautiful interpretation of a compass I have seen for a long long time. 

 It's all in the details 15 Apr 2011 3:58pm

Day two is over. We have managed to finish everything that was brought over to the studio at the end of last week - no mean feat of 26 objects in two days! Admittedly however, there were a fair few that only needed to be flattened but the whole experience was not for the faint-hearted. All of the pieces are looking absolutely fantastic! I took special joy in mechanically surface cleaning pieces that were especially dirty - it really feels like bringing a piece back to life and letting it breathe again!

With conservation, while you need to do what you can in the time you have been given, ethics in every decision that is made need to be taken into careful consideration prior to treatments. All of the Gill pieces that needed flattening were able to take the flattening method of the heat press - this is where the combination of heat and pressure is used to relax the paper fibres. The heat press is used by placing an item between two sheets of silicone before pressing down. The silicone acts as a barrier and protects the paper from heating up too much. This method of flattening was chosen due to the time restrictions we were working under. A more traditional method is to humidify a piece, for which there are several methods for, and to flatten it under boards, placed between layers of blotter and tissue. These are generally left overnight to take effect after a few changes of blotters, depending on the humidification method used and the wetness of them.

One of the more challenging piece on day two was the 'Atlantic Charter' map, a pen and ink original from 1942 that I mentioned in an earlier blog entry. This has a selection of small pieces of paper attached to it that were coming loose and a dent running down the middle as the piece is constructed from two separate pieces of paper adhered together.

Image: The two pieces of paper adhered together to form the Atlantic Charter map created a dent running down the centre of the piece. prior to surface cleaning and flattening.

First thing to do was to remove the more loose pieces of paper on the piece. Roosevelt's signature was coming loose from its edges and was very easy to remove by gently lifting it off the back with the aid of a spatula and bone folder. The same was done with the date piece, '1941'. The paper used on these two pieces was identical, slightly thicker and more sized compared to the paper on which the original artwork was created on and on which Churchill's signature sits.

Image: Adhesive stains left behind by the Roosevelt signature and the '1941' date piece.

The adhesive used to adhere these pieces onto the artwork has left bad yellow-coloured staining behind. This kind of adhesive stain is very difficult to remove, and the best that could be done was to scrape off the residue from both the artwork paper and the reverse of the small pieces themselves. There was a fair layer of adhesive applied and below you can see a sample of the yellow residue that started to come off the piece on which the signature is on, slightly lessening the strength of the colour of the stain.

Image: Scraping away adhesive residue from the original artwork.

Image: Adhesive residue coming off the verso of the Roosevelt signature piece.

All of the loose pieces were adhered back to the original using 20% wheat starch paste. We needed to test the adhesion power on the loose papers before making the decision that this was good to be used. Wheat paste is very widely used in both book and paper conservation in differing strengths - in book conservation wheat starch can also be mixed with potato starch for added strength. In conservation when adhering loose pieces back onto originals or when repairing, the use of a proper adhesive is absolutely essential. It must have sufficient strength to maintain adhesion for an indefinite period of time, have no tendencies for discolouration and be easily reversible; meaning that it should be possible to remove a repair with minimum effort and damage to the object. Wheat and rice starch pastes has been tried and tested by time as Japanese mounters have used both of these for centuries. Methyl cellulose is another adhesive that can also be used in paper conservation.

Image: Pasting the Roosevelt signature back onto the original artwork with wheat starch paste.

On this Atlantic Charter map of Gill's, Churchill's original signature was on different type of paper and is still very well adhered to the backing paper by the original adhesive used. We did not remove this but simply adhered the slightly curling edges back to the paper by using wheat starch paste. After all of the pieces were secured back to their original positions, they were placed under weight and blotter to dry.

Image: Pasting the curled up corners of the original Churchill signature with wheat starch paste.

Some of the objects had to be cleaned using the sponge rather than rubber. This is due to the fact that the size used in some papers had a waxy surface to it, on which the rubber would not take to well at all. Gelatine has been widely used as a base for paper sizing in Europe, the use of it starting in Italy in the 13th century. A size can be spread onto the surface of the finished sheet of paper or added into the pulp during paper making processes.

Image: Rubbers cut to size to be used in different types of areas in mechanical surface cleaning.

Where a Mars Staedler rubber can be used, it is usually cut to different sizes to be able to do different types of areas on a piece. As I have mentioned before, grated rubber is also widely used in mechanical surface cleaning in paper conservation. Below you can see a corner of one of the Max Gill pieces, where surface staining is very obvious, but where there are also original pencil lines along the margin of the paper. These pencil lines are obviously a part of the original artwork and special care needed to be taken to surface clean the corner from any unwanted stains but to not erase the pencil marks. As an alternative to grated rubber, a slice can be cut off a block to create a sharp edge to enable the use of a more solid piece to clean with that can reach right up to the pencil line. A thinner slice of rubber can also be used to gently brush over the pencil line to remove surface dirt.

Image: Mechanical surface cleaning around original artists' pencil marks.

As you can see from the image above, this corner of the 'Cable and Wireless Great Circle' map has the added, rather large ink stain in this particular corner. I imagined that perhaps Max knocked over an ink well while working on this piece!

 Max Gill conservation - day 2 12 Apr 2011 8:03pm

Day one of the two days of conservation scheduled in with myself and paper conservator Melissa Williams is now behind us. The work was delivered to the conservation studio on Friday and we started working on them early this morning and by the end of the day had a very respectable percentage of them done. We made a decision to start with the ‘easier’ pieces – these were categorised as such due to the fact that Design Archives' volunteer Suzie Horada had surface cleaned some of them prior to getting them in the studio and others that were generally in great condition.

From the pieces we worked on today I thought I would highlight a few things that needed to be taken into consideration while working, first of which is a great example of being aware of what is at the verso of the objects.  

Image: On the left the sketch prior to surface cleaning and on the right using grated rubber to clean over the sketch without effecting it too much.

The image above is the from the verso of Max Gill’s 'Cable & Wireless Great Circle' map - a watercolour original from 1945. The recto was mechanically surface cleaned with a sponge due to the fragile nature of the watercolours, but the majority of the back could be cleaned with a block of rubber - apart from the areas in which Max had ‘sketched’ with a pencil. First I cleaned around the area as close to the pencil marks as possible with a block of rubber. After this I used grated rubber to clean up over and around the sketched area to make sure that removal of the sketch itself was minimised. The results from this method won't look as 'clean' as using a block or more solid piece of rubber but considering not much pressure can be applied to a pencilled area when surface cleaning, using grated rubber (or a sponge) is a very effective method.

Image: After using grated rubber to clean over the sketched area.

Pencil marks are not the only thing you can come across on the reverse of objects that need to be taken into consideration when cleaning items. Below you can see an example of the verso of one of Max’s unfinished pencil and ink pieces for the Glasgow Empire exhibition of 1938. In this one his pencil marks on the recto were so heavy that they had created these beautiful indentations on the verso – special care needs to be taken in cases like this as these areas should not be flattened by applying too much pressure. This would lead to losing all this detail and despite the fact that they can be found at the back of an item, the 'information' is just as important and often just as interesting. In these instances, the best way to mechanically surface clean is to use a sponge and go over the areas carefully.

Image: Pencil mark indentations at the verso.

Two of the original artwork pieces we worked on today had tears in them 'repaired' with magic tape. As the adhesive used in tapes like this is not good for the condition of the paper in the long run, the tape pieces were carefully removed with the help of a hot iron and tweezers. The tears these pieces held together were then repaired with heat-set tissue, which is not only very easily reversible but much more sympathetic to the originals as they gain age.

Image: Removing a scotch tape 'repair' with the aid of tweezers and a hot iron. 

In cases where a piece had a small corner missing, one was 'created' for them. This is done by repairing as much of the corner from the verso of the piece, but also adding a smaller piece of heat-set tissue on the recto of the object, as close to the edge of the tear to minimise visible repairing.

Another item worth mentioning is a watercolour piece on tracing paper, entitled ‘Plans for Ship building’. This had been repaired by using brown tape pieces at the verso to hold together several tears along the edges of the object. This type of tape is similar to the one used by David Cooper in the final framing of the objects - the tape has one side that becomes tacky when wetted. In this instance, the tapes appeared to be relatively old ‘repairs’ as the nature of them was dry enough to make the removal of them relatively easy to perform with a small spatula. All of the tears were again repaired from the verso using heat-set tissue.

Image: Removal of a brown tape repair.

A couple of the pieces also appear to have silverfish damage. These are little silvery crawling creatures that have been around for 400 million years and are usually a symptom of moisture problems. Silverfish feed on a lot of human foods but also create destruction with paper products, glues, starches, sugars and even fabrics. Silverfish prefer darkness and the ideal conditions for them to flourish are at 75-95% relative humidity with temperatures between 21-26c. On paper, silverfish do not like inks and in a lot of cases they will destroy paper around any inked areas. Damage from silverfish usually appears very irregular and notched and the size (ie the coating) of the paper has been grazed.

Image: Silverfish damage as seen from the verso of one of the Gill items.

This particular Gill item has now been repaired from the verso with heat-set tissue to avoid further damage and rips to the effected areas. 

Despite the hectic nature of today, I am very much looking forward to tomorrow and getting on with the more 'complex' objects from the exhibition selection being conserved by myself and Melissa.

 Max Gill conservation - day 1 11 Apr 2011 8:48pm

Image: Objects from the Design Archives going on loan.

A few months ago, The Design Archives were contacted by the Southbank Centre in London to act as 'object curators' for a section in the 60th anniversary exhibition of the Festival of Britain, called Museum of 1951. It is being designed by Hemingway Design and the narrative is written by the Archives' visiting fellow Dr Harriet Atkinson.

There are two books, four photographs and two booklets that we are lending for the exhibition. These are going to be couriered to London next week and can be enjoyed at the exhibition from the 21st of April onwards.

The objects needed to be 'secured' for transportation purposes and while the photographs and booklets can quite happily travel in Melanex sleeves, the two books needed a little bit of extra attention. So today I have made two 4-flap enclosures from conservation quality card (300gsm) for transportation of the books to be exhibited.

Image: 4-flap enclosure for the 'Council of Industrial Design -  Design Folio: Public Lettering' book.

An exit form the Archives' team revised at the end of last year can now also be put to use! This is documentation is filled for all materials leaving the Archive on which the destination, condition and reason for exit of objects is documented before they leave. These are signed on departure and on arrival at their destination and ensure we are at all times aware of where items are and when they are due to return.

 Enclosures 08 Apr 2011 4:50pm

Today I have placed four bug traps within the Archives to see if anything will get caught. They are composed of cardboard with a sticky surface on the inside and a small pill supplied with them is placed inside to attract any bugs towards it. These traps have been purchased from a specialised conservation suppliers.

The placement of the traps was difficult to determine, as the Archives not only function as an archive but also as an office and research space. They needed to be placed somewhere where they do not get in the way of the everyday use of the space, but somewhere where there is a good chance something could get caught. Good places for these traps are dark corners where things do not get moved around too much. I thought about placing some traps along the rolling shelves where the collections are held, but will come back to this depending on how succesfull this first installment turns out to be.

The traps have been dated and will now be monitored. I am sincerely curious to see what happens, and to then try to identify the crawlies should we catch any. 

 Bug traps 30 Mar 2011 2:34pm

The five items I talked about in the previous post have now been framed by Senior Technician David Cooper at the University Gallery. Due to budgetary limitations, most of the materials will be exhibited in recycled frames. This means that the materials are found suitable frame sizes from the existing empty frames rather than frame sizes being made to measure. The frames used for this exhibition have had an interesting journey so far. They were used to exhibit both Grace Robertson's photographs and John Lord's illustrations in major exhibitions at the University Gallery - so Max Gill is in good company. 

Image: The Coventry tapestry attached to acid-free board with archival tape.

The Coventry tapestry miniatures could not be framed in the traditional way of cutting a window mount due to the thickness of them. Instead, David Cooper attached the items to an acid free board with archival tape placed at each end of the piece. Archival tape is an adhesive tape that has one side that becomes sticky when wetted and is generally used by the University Gallery staff for mounting exhibition works.

Image: Foam board 'buffer' to stop the original artwork touching the mount glass when framed.

Due to the thickness of the two miniatures, a way in which to frame them without the surfaces of them touching the mount glass needed to be invented. For this purpose, David added a necessary thickness of foam board along the edges of the frame on top of which the board with the miniatures attached would sit. When the frame was then sealed, the pieces sit happily in a chamber created for them with the aid of the foam board.

Image: Archival tape used to attach original artwork onto acid free mount board for framing purposes.

For the other three items mentioned in my previous entry were framed in the 'traditional' way where a mount was cut to size for the two photographs and the original artwork to go into the frame together. The actual items were attached to the acid free board by placing a strip of archival tape along each of the top edges. When the exhibition comes down, the tape will be cut off as close as possible to the edge of the original and a piece of it will be left on the verso.

David Cooper has decades of experience in hanging up shows at the University Gallery and objects have been hung this way for just as long. I have personally not 'worked with' archival tape or removal of it from objects in my short 'life' in paper conservation but obviously archival tape has been developed to be safe and effective for use in hanging objects. If I was hinging these items for the exhibition, it is very likely I would be cooking up a wheat starch paste from scratch to use as an adhesive and fiddling with different types of hinges -  taking a lot longer to do a job David managed perfectly well in a blink of an eye with his years of experience!

 Framing 28 Mar 2011 4:39pm

Image: Difference between surfacing cleaning (right half) and not (left half). Detail from the original artwork.

From the selection of Gill objects we have here at the moment, there were two items small enough for our scanners here at the Design Archives. The items themselves actually hold within them 5 separate pieces. I mechanically surface cleaned the items and the went ahead and scanned them.

Image: Original artwork for the North Moreton war memorial.

In the collection owners numbering system, item number 2 is Gill's North Moreton 'triptych' from 1921. It holds within it two black & white photographs attached to board and a watercolour and ink piece of original artwork. The photographs' dimensions are small and they fit into our scanner perfectly but the original artwork needed to be scanned in two halves and pasted together using Photoshop.

The original artwork is generally in good condition, though the paper itself is very thin. There are creases and pin holes on the piece showing great evidence of it being a 'living thing' at the time. These will be left as found.

The photographs have slight fading along the edges, but like most black and white photographs, they have stood the test of time very well. In an ideal situation and with a lot more time, I would determine whether removing the backing boards from the photographs would be advisable. A lot of objects out there are mounted in this manner, but if the board used for mounting is of an acidic nature, this can cause objects unnecessary deterioration in the future. The adhesives and tapes used in sticking objects to backing boards can also cause harm and discolouration. Backing removal is a very long process as the layers of backing boards need to be removed one thin layer at a time to avoid making the object adhered to them to lose strength. Top layers are obviously a lot easier to remove, but the closer you get to the original, the more risk there is of damaging it. Not for the faint hearted!

Image: One of the two Coventry tapestry miniatures.

In the numbering system, item number 36 is a miniature version of the Coventry tapestry from 1937. This holds two separate pieces within it. These are original watercolour paintings on thick board that are basically incredibly detailed realisations working towards the final tapestry. The dimensions of the miniatures are 268 x 90mm and 243 x 94mm. There are also pieces of black and white photography adhered on top to illustrate the text areas of the tapestries. The colours on these objects are in immaculate condition and the only issue with them is the board in which they are on bending slightly inwards. This is a great visual demonstration of the grain direction of the board accented by the use of watercolours - the water has acted as an agent that saturates the paper fibres on contact and retracts again when drying, causing the board to bend in on itself.

These five objects have now been cleaned, scanned and passed on to the Senior Technician David Cooper for framing as they do not require any conservation work aside from the mechanical surface clean.

 Scanning 25 Mar 2011 3:44pm

Image: Design Archives' volunteer Suzie Horada mechanically surface cleaning a Max Gill map from 1942.

To try and maximise the time I have for the conservation treatments when I get to the studio, I made a decision to mechanically surface clean some of the smaller pieces on premises here at the Design Archives. For this, I enlisted the help of our current volunteer, Suzie Horada, who is a History of Design student here at Brighton. After explaining to her the reason for doing this, and more importantly how to do it safely, we have mechanically surface cleaned the smaller scale items that will only need flattening in the conservation studio. 

In total, eight of the exhibition pieces have now been surface cleaned. Three of these I can go ahead and scan before handing them over to the Senior Technician David Cooper at the University Gallery for framing.

 With a little help 23 Mar 2011 4:29pm

As I mentioned before, the documentation process allowed me to make note and plan for any more challenging issues that myself and Melissa Williams might come across during conservation and I thought I would share a few of those with you.

Image: Max Gill's Atlantic Charter map, pen and ink original, 1942.

The first piece I'll talk you through is the Atlantic Charter map from 1942. This item is a pen and ink original and has a variety of very interesting issues to bring up. The dimensions of the charter are 1100 x 775 mm and it has been constructed from two separate large pieces of paper stuck together. On the image above you can just see the slight bend on the surface where the two pieces are joined together. This off-middle joint consequently has a thicker feel to it compared to the rest of the paper.

Image: Signatures of Roosevelt and Churchill (detail).

Under the main banner of text there are three pieces of ink of paper attached - the date 1941 and two signatures. On the left is a signature of Franklin Roosevelt and on the right an original signature of Winston Churchill. All of these pieces have been adhered to the original artwork with what, at first inspection, appears to be an animal-based glue. These types of glues have the tendency to become very brittle and yellow in colour with age. The hardened residues of glues like this can be removed by scraping with care. These three additional pieces will need to be secured during conservation.

Image: Another loose piece needing attention (detail).

There is also an additional piece added to the original artwork at the bottom edge of the item. This appears to state the producer of the poster and will also need to be secured properly. The problem with these adhesives on any piece of art is that it they leave a permanent stain that does not really respond to washing treatments. The best that can be done is scraping away any residual adhesive and securing any such pieces to the original by using a wheat starch paste. This paste is used widely in paper conservation. It is easily reversible as it is soluble in water and it doesn't leave any unwanted stains on the paper. 

Image: Ink markings along the edges of the poster (detail).

As I had mentioned before, this particular piece is a great example of showing something that isn't intended to be in a 'final piece' and could, by some, considered to be unwanted markings. But as, after all, this is an original piece of artwork; Gill's ink markings along the edges are beautiful little pieces of evidence of a work in progress.

Image: Queen Mary map.

Another piece that I thought I would use as an example is the draft watercolour from 1946 map designed to go aboard the Queen Mary ship. This item has the dimensions of 1600 x 806 mm. Before this piece was rolled up, it had been folded, as the fold creases run all across the object from left to right. It is not only an original draft watercolour, but also has ink handwriting in the top right corner area and below it, two photographs adhered to the paper.

Image: Detail of the paper joints, part of original watercolour and a photograph adhered to the paper.

The whole object is made up of segments of paper - there is one larger piece where the watercolour painting is that has been joined together with four smaller pieces of paper.

For whole objects that have been built up in this manner, any decision about aqueous treatments would need to be even more carefully considered than usual. When paper comes in contact with water, the fibres within it expand. If an artwork is made up of several sections and is not taken apart before washing, these sections can become separated. Once the pieces are separate, and wet, they would need to be left to dry before attaching them back together again. When paper dries, it contracts and if pieces are washed separately, or come apart during washing processes, the chances are that they will not fit together again as well as they did before wetting. The way in which paper acts and reacts has also to do with its grain direction and if joined pieces have grain direction running in separate directions, the piecing together will become even more difficult.

For the Gill material, there is a general understanding that no aqueous washing methods will be used in the conservation of these materials due to time and budgetary restrictions. However, some materials might need to be humidified before flattening if the heat press will be deemed unsuitable.

 Items of interest 21 Mar 2011 3:52pm

Image: Documentation of one of the Gill items to be exhibited. 

Yesterday I spent the entire day going through the pieces delivered at the end of February for documentation purposes. This was also a really nice way to familiarise myself with the objects prior to taking them to the conservation studio for the planned dates early April. The decision to document the objects before delivery to the conservation studio was made to save time on the two days of conservation that are budgeted into the exhibition plan.

There were 31 pieces in total to go through and to document these in one day was no mean feat! Prior to starting to unroll the objects, I had to make sure I had a table space large enough to do this in comfortably and that the surfaces were thoroughly cleaned. The documentation requires cross-referencing the numbering system created by the collection owners to make sure that the pieces are named properly. I then measured and dated (where known) them, after which each of the items were examined carefully to document any issues with the paper and/or the inks and other media used in them.

Image: An example of a part of a documentation sheet (work in progress).

Diagrams and photography also support these notes. This is to make sure the condition of each individual object is documented thoroughly before any conservation and framing takes place. It is also important to document both the recto and verso of the piece.

There can be conditions on how much conservation actually takes place. These conditions can be dictated by owners of collections and even by the piece itself. As an example an object that has lived its life being folded, the folds become a part of its history. They might need to be strengthened by adding support to prevent any damage and tearing happening in the future but flattening the object entirely may not be the best treatment for it. Just as with surface cleaning pieces with pencil marks on them, great care needs to go into the planning of conservation treatments, which also emphasises the importance of thorough documentation.

 Unrolling and documenting 17 Mar 2011 11:25am

Image: Some of the meticulously labelled rolls in which the Gill items were delivered by the collection owners.

The exhibition planning team have now made final decisions about which of the Max Gill items are going to be included in the exhibition and the collection owners have delivered the majority of the pieces that are to be included in the exhibition. This means that all of the conservation planning can now really start to take shape. 

Most of the objects, as expected, have come to me rolled up and inside tubes. The collection owners have very carefully labelled the items which makes the organisation at my end a lot faster and easier. First thing for me to do is to 'unveil' them, document their condition, draw diagrams and take photographs of the pieces. I can't wait to get started!

 Delivery 28 Feb 2011 3:24pm

While I am waiting on the exhibition planning team to make final decisions about which pieces from the Max Gill collection will be exhibited I thought I would write a little bit about the reasons for mechanical surface cleaning. All of the Gill objects might not necessarily need a lot of work doing to them, but they will all need to be surface cleaned prior to framing.

Surface cleaning materials is a very important first step in the chain of events that stabilise an item being conserved. Dirt on objects can be a source of deterioration and in worse cases can contain mould spores that flourish on nutrients found within the paper and any debris left on it. Water has a strong capillary ability and when paper gets wet, the fibres expand. They contract again when drying, and if surface cleaning hasn't been done, this action traps in any dirt or dust particles left on the paper.

Considering the safety of an object needs to be taken into account. The strength of the paper will determine how and if surface cleaning can be carried out. It is important to remember and know that pencil marks, cataloguing marks and random smudges on objects can play a historic part in the object's life and removing these marks will change the object drastically. I should also note that both recto and verso of the item need to be cleaned.

For the most fragile pieces, surface cleaning might take place by using only a brush - the size of the brush will be dependent on how fragile the paper in question is. Mechanical cleaning can also be done with the aid of chemical sponges, which are widely used in conservation. They are composed of rubber and are heavily filled with calcium carbonate and do not leave any residue on the paper's surface, but are very effective in picking up dirt.

Image: An example of how much dirt can be lifted off the surface of a print with a chemical sponge. This is from working on a Macdonald Gill print.

Rubbers are also commonly used, and the most widely used, to my understanding, are Staedler Mars rubbers. This particular make is used for the same reason as the chemical sponges - research has shown that this rubber does not leave any residue on the paper's surface. On sturdier archival pieces, the rubber can be used as a block. For more delicate pieces and items with pencil marks, the rubber is grated and a piece of cotton wool is parcelled inside a piece of anti-static cloth and this is used to gently roll over the grated rubber, removing surface dirt as you go along.

Groomstick is another tacky substance that can be used when wanting to pick up larger bits of debris on an item - for example pieces of glass from a broken frame. Groomstick has a very tacky nature and is not recommended to be used directly on the paper as it can damage the fibres. Using a museum vacuum is also an option and is generally used with archives that are very dirty, for example objects that have not previously been stored correctly. Vacuums should have a filter at the tip to enable picking up any loose pieces that may come off in the process.

Cleaning tears and around holes and other damaged areas can also propose a problem, as it is important to take care not to damage the object any further. For tears along edges of a piece, a piece of melinex can be used to slide into the tear  - this way both sides of the tear can be gently cleaned with less risk of extending the tear.

Surface cleaning objects takes a considerable amount of time - especially cleaning larger pieces such as a lot of the proposed exhibition items from the Gill collection.

 Mechanical surface cleaning 11 Feb 2011 12:18pm

Image: The original poster (left) with the two facsimiles.

For the facsimiles, the digital master file was given to both the University's reprographics service and a local photographic printers. It has been very interesting to observe the differences between the two. The colour casts are subtly different and there is appears to be a difference between the contrast settings. I believe neither place adjusted any settings prior to printing, so these differences will have occurred in the printing process. As the copies were made in the spirit of testing out the process, neither place had access to the original poster for reference so the colours were not as vibrant as on the original. There were also subtle differences between being able to see the pixels - one was a little bit softer compared to the other.

For the purposes of making a decision about whether to show facsimiles or not, we arranged for the copies to be magnetically hung on a wall for the collection owners to see what could be done. Although they were very impressed with the results, a decision has now been made in collaboration with the entire team that only originals will be exhibited.

Going through the process of testing out the option of showing facsimiles has been a really fantastic learning curve. The digital image can now also be used in the planned digital resource in support of the exhibition.

 Facsimiles 04 Feb 2011 3:53pm

Image: Final version of the digitised Max Gill 'sample poster'.

Conservators are not generally involved with digitisation, but after 9 years of experience in digitisating archival materials, my path to conservation has been a little bit back-to-front and I am now in a very fortunate situation to have the skills to both conserve an original archival object and to digitise it.

The digitisation of materials is at the forefront for many collections, and plays a big part in not only extending the lives of materials by reducing handling but also by opening collections to wider audiences when a visit is not feasable - this is of course making a general assumption that access to the internet is available.

The Design Archives have a long and successfull history in digitisation. Posters and larger materials that do not fit into our scanners are photographed instead. For photographing large pieces, myself and my colleague Barbara Taylor use the photographic studio here at Grand Parade. For acquiring the best possible results, we use a Mamiya RZ medium format camera with a digital Imacon back attached and a set of flashes for even lighting.

The issue with digital photography and scanning of materials is that despite the advances in digital equipment over the years, details can still get 'lost in translation'. With the Max Gill 'sample poster', the issue became the finely detailed black ink images lined along the bottom of the piece. The digital elements of the camera were not able to handle the thin black lines so close together and created a colour effect on the image that is not present in the original.

Image: A colour effect created where the digital camera wasn't able to properly register the fine black lines so close together.

The only way to get around this phenomenon was in the post-photography production of the image. By isolating the affected areas and adjusting colour casts and contrast in Photoshop, I could lessen the effect of the colour and bring the digitised version of the poster closer to what the original looks like.

Image: The colour effect controlled by masking the area in Photoshop and adjusting contrast and colour casts. 

Since the 'sample poster' was digitised with the goal of possibly creating a facsimile for the forthcoming exhibition, the file size, pixel count and focus needed extra attention. The plan is for the reproduction to be printed out the same size as the original. For optimising the results, this means that the pixel count needed to be high and the dimensions of the digital file the same as the original dimensions of the poster. Colour matching will also prove a challenge, as the way in which colours are represented are as numerous as there are computer screen calibrations in the world. For any final printing, the printers would ideally need access to the original to be able to match the facsimile colours as closely as possible with the original colours on the poster.

 Digitisation 21 Jan 2011 2:26pm

Image: Initial unrolling showing the right half of the poster.

To figure out the best way forward with the Max Gill collection's conservation processes, the holders have kindly delivered a 'sample poster' to work on. The purpose of this is to not only try and estimate the time for conservation needs for budgetary reasons, but to also test out a possibility of using facsimiles in the exhibition to spare some of the more delicate originals the exposure. This suggestion was made in case the exhibition is to tour other venues after the University Gallery.

Prior to getting the poster delivered, I thought about the options for flattening processes and the large dimensions of most of the Gill objects would also have to be taken into careful consideration when handling. The inks used on the 'sample poster' needed to be tested for fugitivity if any aqueous flattening methods were to be used. Fugitivity testing is required to determine if the inks on a piece of work are likely to run when in contact with water and is essential before deciding on any aqueous treatments. This testing is done by using a small brush dipped in water and wetting a very small spot on a piece of work, letting the water seep into the paper and pressing a piece of blotter on top to see if there is any ink transferral. The process of wetting a spot is usually repeated a few times to make sure the paper fibres have taken the water in sufficiently enough for the ink fugitivity test to be conclusive. Usually all colours also need to be tested separately, as two inks won't necessarily behave in a similar manner when wet.

Anytime any actual conservation takes place, a pre-conservation record is filled. In this, the most common points that are recorded are type of paper (machine or hand made, laid or wove), dimensions, gsm (the weight of the paper), tears, dirt, folds, holes, print type and other materials used on it. The item is also measured, sketched and photographed.

After doing this, I began the conservation of this poster entitled 'Post-Office Radio-Telephone Services' from 1935. The item came to me rolled up and I had not seen it prior to unrolling it at the conservation studios, and you can imagine my joy in seeing all these beautiful bright colours! The poster itself was in very good condition - apart from the obvious flattening issues I concluded that it only had minor surface dirt on both recto and verso of the piece.

Image: Top left corner prior to surface- and spot-cleaning.

Along the left edge there were also areas of ingrained stains, where the dirt had embedded itself into the paper fibres. Since this poster was acting as the 'test piece', after a general surface cleaning with grated Mars Staedler rubber, I decided to attempt removing these stains.

Image: Top left corner after surface- and spot-cleaning.

With the stains I only used cold water, a thin brush to wet the affected area and the capillary action of blotter with pressure from a bone folder to reduce the stain. Most of the stains along the edge were water soluble. The general misconception about washing items is that after washing the stains will have disappeared entirely. More often than not, this is not the case. Conservation is still a relatively young profession and in the past, bleaching has been used as a conservation treatment - thankfully these days this is not considered good practice.

Image: From spot-cleaning another area of the stained edge of the poster, on this strip of blotter you can see the gradual process of the stain being lifted off.

After I was satisfied with the stain removal, I made a decision that the paper and inks used were strong and stable for dry heat pressing to flatten it. This meant I didn't need to wet the object but instead after placing it under silicone pieces, it was flattened in quarter sections under a heated press. This worked wonderfully well and I am very pleased with the final result. A melinex sleeve was then made to size and the poster is being transported back to base for the next step in the process.

 Sample poster 18 Jan 2011 4:01pm

Image: A selection of tools used in paper conservation.

Today I was thinking about the tools that a paper conservator needs to do their job. At the very top of that list should be patience. All of the physical tools required - and there are plenty - are to me the trade-off for the patience as you get to work with fairly random things at times. Conservators need to stay inventive; dentists tools become irreplaceable and making small saw-blades into scraping tools or suddenly possessing a vast collection of small jam jars that fill up your toolbox is not unheard of.

And it isn't all hands on deck! Not only does everything generally take a long time, the paperwork and other forms of documentation - sketches, diagrams and photography - are absolutely essential to the conservation process. Sometimes you need to research what it is you are working on to gain an understanding to any issues related to it. This is more dominant in the museum sector however, where knowing the history of 'the stuff' enables you to treat it with sensitivity to the traditions of another culture or religion, for example. Of course the variety of areas in which to specialise in within the conservation umbrella are also numerous - in this diary I will only be concentrating on issues surrounding paper conservation.

Image: A selection of tools used in paper conservation.

There are considerable differences in conservation issues between archives and museums. To put it very crudely, archive materials are generally handled, and the ability to do so becomes a part of the research process. Museum objects are there to be looked at and admired, most of the time behind a glass and out of reach. These kinds of issues bring to the surface the need to be able to adjust your skills depending on what it is you are working with.

A conservator doesn't only need to know what to do with the vast selection of tools of the trade, but I think also needs to be part artist, part photographer, part chemist and part researcher - and have the patience of a saint.

 Tools of the trade 14 Jan 2011 2:39pm

Image: Detail from a poster

As the new year is starting to shape, so is the proposed exhibition of the work of Macdonald (Max) Gill due to open in July. Towards the end of 2010, I had the opportunity to visit the archive and have a look through some of the materials. The majority of the objects are in great condition. A lot of the work has been 'spared' by the fact that it has been stored rolled up in tubes and not handled much in the past. Under the circumstances, it has also been very well looked after by the holders of the collection.

At first assessment, the rolled up pieces propose an issue for not only any conservation work, but also for mounting and framing for the exhibition. Most of the pieces that are currently of interest for the exhibition planning team will need conservation treatments such as surface cleaning, some possible aqueous washing, flattening and minor repairs to be done. There are also issues to consider in regards to storage post-exhibition, as once flattened it would be best the chosen objects stayed that way. However, more often than not, a lack of storage space dictates the terms.

I am increasingly excited about working with these beautiful pieces and look very much forward to getting 'stuck in'.

 Archive visit 10 Jan 2011 4:07pm

Welcome to my conservation diary! I thought I would begin by writing briefly about my background and how I've come to be here.

I started working at the University of Brighton Design Archives as a Digitisation Technician in 2002 in the midst of the 'Designing Britain' project. At the time I was on the second year of the BA Editorial Photography course here at Brighton, from which I graduated with Honours in 2003.

Continuing to work in the Archives as a Digital Imaging and Media Technician after graduation, my interest in archives and museum environments took off. I was so inspired by a visit to the conservation studios at the Tate whilst on an ARLIS organised conference I attended through work, that a few years later when the opportunity presented itself I applied to get on the PgDip Conservation course at the University of the Arts, London at Camberwell. My application was successful and I graduated in June 2010.

Since then I have not only continued working in the Archives, but have also been enhancing and refreshing my conservation skills by working one day a week with paper conservator Melissa Williams, who has years of priceless experience in the field and has provided me with new challenges on a weekly basis.

So that's me in a nutshell. This diary's aim is to talk you through any thoughts and ideas I may have while working on the Macdonald Gill exhibition and any conservation related issues that we come across here in the Archives - and I sincerely welcome any questions and/or comments.

 An introduction 04 Jan 2011 12:00pm