Bringing The Past To Book

Art and design studio Universal Everything has taken steps to preserve its legacy in non-digital form

Digital design may be where much of the most exciting and boundary pushing work is being done these days. But what of legacy? When your creations exist purely as pixels on a screen, how can they be preserved for future generations… or even a decade from now?

With all this in mind, Sheffield-based art and design studio Universal Everything has been working on its first book. What is Universal Everything?, published by Unit Editions, has been produced in a limited run of 2,000, each with its own unique cover.

“The idea was discussed around the 15th anniversary of Universal Everything,” explains creative director Matt Pyke. “We’d accumulated a large body of screen-based work that I felt was ready for a permanent physical documentation, as opposed to our life’s work being precariously archived online.”

To create it, he teamed up with the Spin design team of Tony Brook and Claudia Klat. “I’ve been a follower of Spin since its early work for Channel 4,” explains Pyke. “Although our studio has evolved into something beyond a graphic design studio, it’s still in our roots. I felt Spin would glean this out of our work to give it a design context.”