In terms of layout, within the first version, the text was placed in a simple block at the top left corner of the page.¹ In this way, I established a baseline layout to reproduce and compare with the typewriter and the letterpress.

From here, I developed a second version, where I allowed myself to break up the text and move it freely across the page to play with white space and rhythm. These adjustments were all performed in 11 minutes and 8 seconds. Moving the text required only seconds, allowing me to test multiple arrangements without any preparation or commitment.²

Finally, in a third version, I removed all constraints. I copied and pasted the paragraph multiple times across the page, flipped sections of the text upside down, and overlapped text. I tested different typefaces while maintaining the black-and-white colour restriction that was consistent across all three mediums.³ All these changes required minimal effort and time, and the composition evolved rapidly through trial and error. Duplicating text or reversing its orientation took only seconds, allowing me to try-out numerous variations in a short amount of time, all without leaving a trace of this process within the layout.

The design process of creating these three versions, unfolded through a sequence of quick adjustments rather than deliberate planning. I would design a page, reject it, delete everything and start again within minutes. The undo command allowed mistakes to be instantly reversed, which meant that time was not a significant constraint during this process. As a result, decisions didn’t feel final. Instead, the composition remained open to continuous revision

In working, I had assumed that this flexibility would make the work process feel less pressured. However, the opposite occurred where infinite possibility of edits and design variations created a pressure for constant optimisation. Instead of providing reassurance, the abundance of options made the process feel overwhelming. The possibility that I could easily refine, drove me to continue refining.⁴ This observation began to reveal how digital environments shape the temporal structure of my design process rather than simply providing more control.

As I understand, this experience reflects what philosopher Franco Berardi describes in “Accelerationism Questioned from the Point of View of the Body” as the internalisation of acceleration within contemporary digital labour (Berardi 2013). Berardi believes technology doesn’t just make things faster; it also changes how we think and behave internally, pushing us to always be more efficient and productive.

In the context of digital design, I consider the frictionless reversibility of digital environments—the easiness of undoing actions and reversing layout—to support this condition of continuous adjustment, where the design process remains open rather than moving toward a point of completion. During this exploration, I experienced a difficulty in accepting when a work was finished as I continuously looked for improvements even after my initial goal had been achieved. I felt an internal pressure to produce. From this perspective, I consider that the laptop does not simply enable faster production. It restructures my relationship to time and control within the creative process. As I continuously revised the design, the process became less about finalizing the design and more about sustaining an ongoing state of modification.

Instead of committing to decisions, my work process included rapid cycles of adjustment and revision. Which made me inquire if just because working digitally is faster and allows for more production, am I still making meaningful design decisions? This observation suggests that within my own workflow, the undo command encouraged continuous optimisation rather than a sense of completion. Instead of providing more control, the digital environment shaped the tempo of decision-making during the design process. In this sense, the pressure to keep refining was no longer imposed externally, but became internalised, this links to Franco Berardi’s argument that acceleration operates within the subject itself.

Working with the typewriter required a different type of attention. Although the format resembled that of digital writing in that I worked with a rectangular page and a linear text, the physical act of typing became slower and more deliberate. Each keystroke produced a visible mark that could not be removed.

My work process began by replicating the baseline layout. At first I assumed that reproducing a simple block of text would be straightforward. However, the margins I had set caused several words to be cut off abruptly at the edge of the page, disrupting legibility. Unlike working digitally, the typewriter did not automatically move words to the next line. This forced me to become aware of spatial limits.⁵

After completing the text once, I attempted a second version, believing that familiarity with the line breaks would improve the result. I was mistaken. Instead, the second version contained new mistakes as the margins stayed unpredictable, causing words to cut off more abruptly.⁶ This made me realise that the process required planning the composition before typing rather than correcting it afterwards. My attention shifted towards anticipation instead of correction.⁷

Planning the work in this way changed the temporal structure of my design process. Because on the laptop, decisions remain temporary and can always be edited through undo, but in using the typewriter, each action carries immediate consequences as decisions are permanent.

Working with the typewriter now entailed, instead of refining the composition after it appears on the page, to predicting how the text will occupy space before typing it. During the exploration I noticed that my instinct was still to search for ways to correct mistakes quickly. When the typewriter began jamming on one side of the page, my immediate reaction was to restart it, as if resetting a digital program. This reflex revealed how deeply digital habits structure my expectations of production.

This reflex thought did not just happen once, but continuously, every time the typewriter jammed. Even within an analogue environment, my impulse was to restore a frictionless workflow similar to the laptop. Later on in my exploration, instead of fixing the jam, I incorporated it into the composition by allowing text to overlap that area.⁸ The limitation shifted from an obstacle to acceptance and integrating this facet as an element in the design.⁹

In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, German philosopher and culture critic Walter Benjamin describes the concept of aura as the unique presence of a work in time and space, being linked to its history and the conditions of its production (Benjamin 1935, 3). According to Benjamin, technologies of reproduction weaken the condition by allowing copies of a work of art to circulate independently from their original context. Therefore, for Benjamin, the singular presence of an object becomes less significant when it can be endlessly reproduced and distributed.

I understand Benjamin’s concept provides a useful framework for reflecting on my experience in working with the typewriter. In my exploration, initially the ‘flaws’ of the typewritten pages; misaligned letters, uneven pressure, and visible corrections, seemed to restore a sense of uniqueness and material presence within the production process that a digitally produced text lacks.

I became aware, however, that this interpretation risks misunderstanding Benjamin’s concept, as his concept of aura does not simply refer to visual imperfections or material traces, but to the singular presence of an object within a specific historical and spatial situation. Then working from Benjamin’s perspective, the irregularities of the typewritten page alone could not specifically restore a sense of aura. Which brought me to continue my research.

Contemporary scholars have engaged with Benjamin’s theoretical framework in an attempt to understand how his ideas can adapt to modern media environments. In “The Aura of the Object and the Work of Art” media theorist Kiril Vassilev argues that technological reproduction does not simply eliminate aura, as Benjamin originally suggested (Vassilev 2023). Vassilev proposes that aura can transform under new technological conditions. It does not disappear completely, instead the perception of value shifts towards other elements of production, such as material traces, process, or the conditions of production.

This reinterpretation is relevant to my exploration because the irregularities of the typewritten page initially appeared more materially grounded to me than digitally produced text. This was not because it restored Benjamin’s aura but because they made the labour and temporality of the production process visible. It felt as though every decision was physically present in time in a way that digital design software typically conceals.

From this perspective, using a typewriter did not restore aura or intrinsic value to the design automatically due to its physical production. But it does help explain why the analogue processes in my exploration appeared more connected to the making process. This small-scale experiment cannot fully address Benjamin’s historical argument about technological reproduction. My observations only explore how the visibility of mistakes and material traces affected my own experience while working. In this sense, the typewriter did not restore aura, but made the labour and temporality of production more visible, shaping my awareness of the design process rather than the value of the final outcome.

The work process required careful preparation before printing, altering the tempo of decision-making. Each change demanded time and effort, which reduced the number of variations I produced but increased the amount printed per variation, as printing was the only way to see the work and make corrections accordingly. The act of designing became slower and more deliberate because mistakes carried visible consequences.

However, this slowness did not eliminate my desire for control. Similar to the typewriter experiment, I still felt the impulse to optimise the composition. The difference was that optimisation occurred through a different form of planning and commitment, one that is more time consuming and only visible after printing. The physical labour required to reset the type, revealed how digital design normally conceals these temporal elements of production.

Building on my previous observations above in relation to the typewriter experiment, the letterpress further complicates assumptions about aura and singularity. Although working with letterpress felt materially grounded and historically situated, the printing press was originally developed as a technology of mass reproduction, designed to produce multiple identical impressions and distribute texts widely (EBSCO Research Starters).

This explains precisely the kind of technological shift that Benjamin describes in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, where he argues that mechanical reproduction detaches artworks from their unique presence in time and space, allowing them to circulate independently from their original context which weakens their aura (Benjamin 1935, 3). The preparation of the type requires careful manual labour, but the letterpress ultimately enables the production of many identical copies rather than preserving a singular object.

However, Vassilev argues that technological reproduction does not simply eliminate aura but can transform the conditions under which cultural objects are experienced (Vassilev 2023). This perspective helps explain my experience with the letterpress. Although the press is fundamentally a reproductive technology, the process of composing and preparing the type made the labour and time within reproduction visible. In comparison to digital design, edits and iterations occur instantly and leave no trace. From this perspective, the sense of value I perceived did not arise from the uniqueness of the print itself, but from the visibility of the labour and temporality present in the production process. This perception is specific to the conditions of this experiment and my own experience as a designer working between digital and analogue tools. It does not mean that letterpress printing inherently produces more meaningful or valuable outcomes, but rather that it brings forth aspects of production that digital tools tend to conceal.

In reflecting upon this experience, I understand that it can be seen to reflect Berardi’s notion of the internalisation of acceleration within digital labour (Berardi 2013). During the work process of working with the letterpress I noticed a persistent impulse to correct and refine, however, in contrast to the digital environment, the effort it took to make changes, particularly in the letterpress, forced me to second think this impulse. I found that continuing to adjust the design asked for disproportionate amounts of time, physical and mental effort. This led to having to set a limit and accept imperfections that I would have otherwise corrected when working digitally.

During this process, my expectation to optimise did not disappear, but had to be thoughtfully negotiated, making me realise that the drive for continuous refinement is not only a feature of digital tools, but something I have internalised as part of my way of working. Working in environments where there was no access to the undo command or quick revisions, did not remove this tendency but exposed it by making its consequences more visible and demanding.