Anything can become art by the addition of a sufficiently clever interpretive label, even really lousy things. So, let's reinterpret lousy things and make them awesome by adding interpretive label stickers!
This repository contains software designed to help you design and print your own reinterpretive label stickers.
The interpretive labels you create can respond to whatever you want. Don't feel the need to restrict yourself to just one thing or another. There's a lot of ways to make the world a better place!
be civil.
We want to make public spaces more --- not less -- pleasant.
understand relevant legal restrictions in your area and do not violate them.
You'll need to have a Unix shell you can run things in.
You'll also need to have software called Singularity that facilitates packaged Linux workflows.
Grab a copy of the repo using git.
git clone https://github.com/mmore500/reinterpretive-label
cd reinterpretive-label
Make a copy of the template reinterpretive label Latex file in order to customize it.
cp tex/template.tex instance.tex
Now, you can open instance.tex with your favorite text editor and change the text.
Feel free to re-use as much or as little of the template (including the text) as you desire.
You shouldn't really need to know much Latex at all in order to successfully make minor edits. That said, if you're unfamiliar you can find some helpful hints in the "Latex Pointers" section below.
When you're satisfied with your reinterpretive label (instance.tex), here's how to generate a PDF.
singularity run shub://mmore500/reinterpretive-label
This will download the packaged linux workflow for you and do the actual work of compiling instance.tex to instance.pdf.
Be sure that your instance.tex file is saved in the current working directory with exactly that name.
If you want to fiddle with your reinterpretive label some more (i.e., make futher edits to instance.tex) and then recompile instance.pdf, waiting for the singularity workflow image to download again can be annoying.
You can get around this by using the cached .simg file generated when you run from SingularityHub (shub) the first time.
singularity run mmore500-reinterpretive-label-master-latest.simg
Finally, to clean up, use
make clean
One you have a PDF that you like, getting your stickers printed is a snap.
You can print stickers wherever you want.
MakeStickers, though, seems convenient to me because it allows for
- PDF upload
- custom aspect ratios of rectanglular stickers (the height to width of the generated PDF label depends on the amount of content), and
- small batch-size when printing.
Share what you're up to with the hashtag #reinterpretivelabel and\or tweet at me @MorenoMatthewA.
Bonus points for including the twitter handle of your local modern art museum in your stickers.
If you come up with something devastatingly clever you think others might benefit from using as a springboard, add it to the tex directory and put in a pull request (or just email me the .tex file you wrote up if you don't know what that means).
Also, send along PDF copies of your creations so we can start a gallery of examples.
If you're having any issues figuring out how to generate a sticker --- or even just don't have the computational means to do it yourself --- get in touch. I might be willing to fund a few sticker print jobs, too, if you're unable.
matthew.andres.moreno@gmail.com
To edit a .tex file, use a plain text editor, not a rich text editor like Microsoft Word.
The actual text goes in between \begin{document} and \end{document}.
Don't make any edits outside these markers!
Quotation marks:
`` '' YES
" NO
Em dashes:
--- YES
- NO
Text size:
wrap the text you want to resize inside curly braces and tell what effect you want with \sizename.
``
{\huge BIG TEXT}
{\huge small text}
Available size descriptors include: `\Huge`, `\huge`, `\LARGE`, `\Large`, `\large`, `\small`, `\footnotesize`, `\scriptsize`, and `\tiny`.
Text styling:
I defined two text modifiers for you: `\myboldfont` and `\myitalicfont`.
Just like with text size, wrap the text you want to modify inside curly braces and tell what modifier you want.
``
{\myboldfont BOLD TEXT}
{\myitalicfont italic text}
Whitespace: to create a paragraph break, simply have an empty line between two lines of text.
I'm in the top paragraph!
I'm in the top paragraph, too.
I'm in the bottom paragraph.
Use \smallskip, \medskip, and \largeskip to space out your paragraphs.
I'm in the top paragraph!
I'm in the top paragraph, too.
\largeskip
I'm in the bottom paragraph and further away now.
Special characters: the following characters might confuse the Latex compiler and cause an error:
# $ % & ~ _ ^ { }
You can get around this by placing a \ in front.
For example, type \# instead of just # and \$ instead of just $.