dVice4: From Sustenance to Sensation (Video)

This week, PaperSpecsGallery.com calls attention to the latest issue of dVice4, produced by DCC Digital Color Concepts in New York, NY, and designed by OTTO.

The fourth edition—the first to be produced completely by digital means on digital papers—explores the food culture of New York City. From taco trucks to the fine-dining rooms of haute cuisine, the talented creators (photographers, graphic designers and printers) tell the stories of food and people from every corner of the globe in sumptuous slices of life.

Untying the twine by securing an outer wrapping of brown Kraft paper mounted to white butcher paper, I got quite a shock: printed images of raw pork and poultry. This revealed a chipboard sleeve that resembles an unbound hard-cover case. The spine is wrapped with black linen tape; the front cover displays the DV4 logo made from white vinyl, which has been sliced into a pattern of dripping shards (this graphic element repeats throughout the printed pieces). The sleeve holds eight adventure-filled booklets.

There are too many wonderful elements in this package—from papers, formats and images—to do them all justice, but we can say it offers creative inspiration at every turn, flip and unfold.

Some of the memorable moments in these booklets for me included:

• Intimate photographs that set the mood and atmosphere and reveal unobserved details
• Exquisite color reproduction (at times seeming three dimensional)
• Meaningful formatting that sent unexpected messages (e.g. the portraits in the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen booklet where every page is cut into four pieces so you can flip the sections creating new faces from the various features)
• Playful bonus pieces like the piece of Mylar printed with the sheet music for the Mister Softee jingle
• Useful items such as the placements (padded and backed with chipboard) that also send you on an interactive fast food tour via QR codes

In all, this project is thematically compelling, texturally rich and deliciously creative.