Welcome to BUM!

BUM is a physical publication focused on culture, design and architecture, produced in limited editions using technology from the 1980s.

Featuring a variety of articles, projects and artworks, BUM aims to give voice to new critics and designers.

Printed in soy-based inks using a risograph duplicator, each copy of BUM is unique, and individually numbered accordingly. 

The Garden Hide, featured in BUM Edition 5

What is BUM?

What, where and why is BUM?

A Paper Publication

BUM Editions exist as single batch paper publications. Each BUM Edition is individually numbered

Risograph Printed

BUM Editions are printed in soy ink using a Risograph Duplicator. Each page is printed in two colours by Earthbound Press in London, UK. The magazine is then bound by our own fair hands.

For New Voices

BUM Editions feature illustrations, projects, and articles about culture, architecture and design. We are critical but hopeful, and aim to give voice to new critics and designers.

BUM Edition 6: Order is out now!

BUM Edition 6: Order is here!

BUM Edition 6: Order reflects variously on topics including social hierarchy, neurodiversity, parental love, artificial intelligence, productivity, gendered space, co-design, folklore and landscape.

Available in a limited edition of 150, BUM Edition 6 contains contributions by international artists, writers, architects and designers.

BUM Edition 1: Common is now available as a digital issue!

BUM Edition 1: Common is now available as a digital edition – check it out here:

BUM Edition 1: Common

You can also find the Edition by clicking ‘Digital Editions’ from the main menu – enjoy!

BUM Edition 5: Enough is available at independent magazine shops including:

Magculture

Bookm-Ark

Stack Magazines

Amos Rex

Nide

Taidehalli

BUM Edition 5: Enough is out now! 

BUM Edition 5: Enough is here! 

When do we have enough; what more could we do?

BUM Edition 5: Enough ruminates on the idea of adequacy; exploring diverse topics such as the housing crisis, Pride in Japan, the sweet solitude of reading, arranged marriage, the ethics of scratchcards, life after a career in circus and self-building with hemp, along with plenty more. – please check it out here!

BUM Edition 4: Hone is out now! 

We are really happy to publish BUM Edition 4: Hone

The Edition features contributions from international contributors including architects, artists, curators and designers on the theme ‘Hone’ – please check it out here!

BUM Editorial team in Stack Magazine Podcast! 

Exciting stuff! We as BUM Editions editoria team were interviewed by Stephen from Stack Magazine podcast

What an amazing opportunity to get to talk about BUM, how it’s made and why we started to make it in the first place. As well as exciting, it was also quite nerve wrecking for us, but hope you like it and please be kind 🙂

BUM Edition 3: Steps available at MagCulture! 

London based magazine shop MagCulture now has BUM 03: Steps available at their shop!

When do we have enough; what more could we do?

BUM Edition 5: Enough ruminates on the idea of adequacy; exploring diverse topics such as the housing crisis, Pride in Japan, the sweet solitude of reading, arranged marriage, the ethics of scratchcards, life after a career in circus and self-building with hemp, along with plenty more.

Available in a limited edition of 150, BUM Edition 5 contains contributions by international artists, writers, architects and designers including:

  • It’s Beautiful by writer Ayano Yoshida
  • Finding Phenomena: Affordable? by critic Franny Françoise
  • Beyond the Culture of Reproductivity by writer and researcher Litty Salas
  • Circus Ends by circus artist Natalie Oleinik
  • The Garden Hide, an interview with architect Kate Nicklin 
  • Shelf Life by writer and filmmaker Hanan Mahbouba
  • Maslotto: Win What You Already Have by designer Emily George
  • Fleeting Cloud by spatial designer Areej Al-Musalhi
  • Your Flowers Will Not Bloom in This by ceramicist Hania Akhtar

Layout design, editing and binding by Roosa Melentjeff and Lee Marable in Helsinki, Finland.

Risograph printed by Claire Guyot at Riso On The Moon in Toulouse, France.

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What can we learn from unlearning? Will collective action save Britain’s pubs? Can gradual change be anticipated, or even designed? How does iteration effect spontaneity, thought and beauty? Should we aim to miss?

BUM Edition 4: Hone is available now (!) in a limited edition of 150 risograph-printed magazines. The edition gathers articles, projects and artworks from international contributors including:

  • Outeiro House by architect Rute Peixoto
  • Find Phenomena: Meanwhile… by critic Franny Françoise
  • Unlearning as an Act of Resistance by curator Lara Chapman
  • Bottom(s) Up: Saving Your Local by architects Mark David Flynn and Cristina Gaidos
  • MOBIU1 & MOBIU2 by artist Kajsa Bolve
  • The Beauty of the Toad by artist Alice Gautier
  • Why I Aim to Miss! by public servant Ashleigh Watkins
  • Invitations by artist Matt Page
  • Printing the Fieldbrook Giant by artist Josh Krute

Layout design, editing and binding by Roosa Melentjeff and Lee Marable in Helsinki, Finland.

Risograph printed by Claire Guyot at Riso On The Moon in Toulouse, France.

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An express bus rattles towards Ofunato; a cracker cracks in a cricket match; a photographer crouches in a disused canal; a dress dances with its friend Contrary Wind; a convent encloses an oasis of orange trees; a laptop fan blows hot air onto your thighs…

BUM Edition 3: Steps is available now (!) in a limited edition of 150 risograph-printed magazines. The edition gathers articles, projects and artworks from international contributors including:

  • Is “Reconstruction” Right? by writer Ayano Yoshida
  • Finding Phenomena: Lippakioski by Franny Françoise
  • Slippery Mayo by artist Laura Cemin
  • Psychogeographical Steps by designers Clément Rames and Roger Guilemany
  • Rise and Run by architect Essi Oikarinen
  • One More Try by designer and illustrator Johan Gaussens
  • Cooking Though Illustration by maker Mariana Núñez Sánchez
  • My Day As A Turquoise Dress by textile designer Eve Hamari
  • The Flight At Combe Hay by photographer Dave Merritt
  • Wallpaper No. 2 by architect Lee Marable

Layout design, editing and binding by Roosa Melentjeff and Lee Marable in Helsinki, Finland.

Risograph printed by Anna and Johanna at Jemini Press in Stockholm, Sweden.

BUM Edition 3 is available both as a single edition and as part of our subscription service! Visit our online shop to find out more.

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BUM Edition 2: Just is here! Available in a limited edition of 150 individually numbered, risograph-printed magazines.

BUM Edition 2 gathers a series of articles, projects and artworks from artists, architects and designers around the theme ‘Just’.

Contributions include:

  • Just Toilets by architect Marianna Janowicz
  • Finding Phenomena: Democratic Sports by Franny Françoise
  • Love Thy (Non-Human) Neighbour by designer Louize Harries
  • Just A Second by visual artist Dominique Ellis
  • Umpire Chairs by visual artist and architect Elisabeth Ek
  • That’s Not Just the Way It Is! by civil servant Ashleigh Watkins
  • Zoom Room by interior architect Markus Holste
  • All Inclusive by architectural designer Cristina Gaidos and architect Mark David Flynn
  • Don’t Go Don’t Go Don’t Go Stay Here / Don’t Ever End by painter Linden Carter
  • Panopti-fun by architect Lee Marable

Risograph printed in Stockholm Sweden by Anna and Johanna at Jemini Press.

Binding, layout design and editing by Roosa Melentjeff and Lee Marable

BUM Edition 2 is available both as a single edition and as part of our new subscription service! Visit our online shop to find out more.

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Available in a limited edition of 100 individually numbered magazines. 

BUM Edition 1 gathers a series of articles, projects and artworks from artists, architects and designers around the theme ‘Common’.

Common

The everyday, the communal, the non-elitist, the shared, the little valued…

Contributions include:

  • Evolving Workspace by interior architect Markus Holste
  • The City as A School by architect Andra Antone
  • Consider “The” Dictionary by design writer and curator Lara Chapman
  • Collective Wisdom by architect Lee Marable
  • Foreshore: Temporarily Open by designer Charlotte V Smith
  • Time in Common by visual artists Hikari Nishida and Signe Cygan
  • Hull of a Home by ceramicist Mimi McPartlan
  • Finding Phenomena: The Harju Morgue Case by Franny Françoise
  • Super Lover by designer Roosa Melentjeff
 

Risograph printed and bound in Stockholm Sweden by Anna and Johanna at Jemini Press.

BUM Edition 1 is available both as a single edition and as part of our new subscription service! Visit our online shop to find out more.

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BUM Edition 0 is the first publication from BUM Editions.

HOPE! 

We all need a little more of it. 

BUM Edition 0 gathers a series of articles, projects and artworks based on the notion that things will all be alright in the end.

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Selected Articles

BUM is a physical publication and cannot be read online, but here’s a couple of carefully selected tasters

Consider The Dictionary - Design writer Lara Chapman opens facts about dictionaries in BUM Edition 1: Common.
Finding Phenomena: Malmi Flea Market - Resident critic at BUM Editions Franny Françoise introduces Malmi trainstation in BUM Edition 0: Hope




What is Risograph Printing?

BUM is printed using an SF9350 Risograph duplicator. A Risograph is essentially a type of digital mimeograph, first released by the Riso Kagaku Corporation in 1986, 100 years after the first mimeographs.

Risograph duplicators were invented in Japan and use soy-based inks and rice-paper masters to print in single colours on uncoated papers. If a page has two colours, it must be printed twice, with the ink-drum changed inbetween. Unlike ink-jet or laser printing, the soy-based inks used in risograph printing are able to interact with each other, in much the same way as traditional inks would in screen-printing or lithography. These factors give risograph printing a joyous unpredictability and imbue the final prints with a unique sense of life.

Risographs were popular in the late 80’s and early 90’s due to their low-cost and high-speed over medium-sized print runs. If you grew up in the 90’s chances are your local church, school or student union was printing using a risograph.

Presently, risograph printing is having something of a renaissance, used both by artists, zine-makers and designers for its unique print qualities, and by businesses realising that high-speed and low-cost never goes out of fashion.

BUM is printed by the fantastic Jemini Press in Stockholm, Sweden.