Mark Gowing
Inside the Oblong – LIMITED EDITION

Limited edition of 50 copies, signed and numbered, each with a unique hand-printed cover.

Mark Gowing: Inside the Oblong collects twenty years of posters by one of Australia’s leading designers. This limited edition volume is a 284 page portrait of his uncompromising process for commercial clients, exhibitions, film, music and his own personal practice. Always with an audience in mind, the featured commercial works include the likes of 2SER Radio, Australian War Memorial, Hopscotch Films, Preservation Music, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney Opera House, University of Technology Sydney and the Venice Art Biennale. The book also offers a selection of personal works, including the Warsaw Poster Biennale Gold Medal-winning Oil Kills Peace.

Gowing has spent the better part of twenty years exploring the rhythms, proportions and dynamics of the oblong space that is the poster. During this time he has created works for film, music, publishing, business and the arts, and has seen the world shift from the printed sheet to the digital display. No matter what the end medium, Gowing frequently uses the poster format as a means to experiment and challenge the conversation being held with the viewer. He believes that the process of good poster design can be a way to uncover new visual languages, which he explores with abandon—examining varying levels of typographic and cultural coding, while at the same time pushing the boundaries of his craft. 

Gowing’s work has been exhibited and published around the world. He has received numerous international awards from staples such as Graphis, the New York Type Directors Club and the Tokyo Type Directors Club. In 2008 he became the first, and only, Australian to win a Gold Medal at the International Poster Biennale in Warsaw, which was followed by a Golden Bee at the Global Biennale of Graphic Design in Moscow in 2010 and a Gold Medal at the 12th International Poster Biennial in Mexico in 2012. Gowing has been honoured with solo exhibitions at the 22nd International Poster Biennale in Warsaw, Poland; the Divieto d’Affissione in Turin, Italy; and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Gowing is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and his work is held in numerous institutional collections including the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, USA.

Featuring a foreword by designer and writer Kevin Finn, Mark Gowing: Inside the Oblong is a limited edition of 50 copies, signed and numbered, each with a unique state hand-printed cover. 

Please note: The cover of this book is hand-printed using printmakers ink, which may not be completely stable. Every cover is unique. Any imperfections are an intentional part of the work.

French-folded paperback
Mark Gowing hand-printed dust jacket
284 Pages
254 × 192 mm
Design: Formist
Foreword: Kevin Finn
Typeset in Formist Graph and Univers
ISBN: 978-0-6484650-7-2
2020 FE026