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A lab for computation and intelligence as material and medium. Run by Manuel and Ramon.

042 · 23 October 2026 · print · design

Mimeo Studio

Mimeo with tools that know the rules: a canvas editor for script-made zines, where the script decides how things turn, snap, scale and layer, and refused edits say why.

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Three zine pages made in the studio examples: Night Bus with a blue woodcut beast under a pink sun, Night Static with grabbable stickers over a shader sky, and The Parade with three clay creatures

In early access for subscribers until 22 November 2026. Subscribe to run it now.

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Mimeo with tools that know the rules. It is the same zine workbench, where a zine is a script that re-runs into printable pages, with a canvas editor on top. In the editor the script decides what your hands may do: how a picture turns and snaps, how small it may get, which layers are locked, which cells a glyph may land in. An edit the rules refuse records nothing and says why next to the cursor. An allowed edit becomes one line in the overlay, and Promote writes it back into the script.

  • Handles with rules: tool('transform') sets pivots, snaps and validate() checks that refuse or warn ("Under 30 mm the woodcut hatching turns to mush"). Smart guides pull items onto page edges, margins and each other. With something selected, R, S and G turn, scale and move it by mouse or by a typed number.
  • Inspector, layers and rules panels: position, size, opacity and blend mode for the selection; a layer stack you can lock, hide and restack; and every rule shown as the code that made it, with a log of what the rules said.
  • Layers and grids that guard the print: layers() for riso inks, a locked sky and a title kept on top; constrain() for glyphs that land in cells and turn in quarter turns.
  • Pens and modes on the DS: tool(name).every(mm).place(…) makes pens such as a bone pen and a stitch pen, and modes last while a DS button is held. The DS twin sits beside the canvas.
  • Rules at run time: handlers can add rules while the zine runs, the overlay keeps them, and explain() shows them.
  • Everything from Mimeo: tables with exact odds, picture recipes run as jobs, clay creatures, collage from the library, looks such as xerox and riso, and export as SVG, 300 dpi PNG, PDF or an imposed PDF for printing.

Seven new studio examples come first: handles that know the rules, layers that guard the print, a grid that keeps its cells, hold L to turn and R to scale, pens that place things, a shader sky with a collage you can grab, and rules added while it runs. Mimeo's own 71 examples follow, among them The Night Market of Ulan Tor, The Pink Vitrine and The Werm Who Wanted a Hat. Compared with Mimeo, the studio replaces the Spread, Graph and Room tabs with the canvas, its inspector and the rules panels.

The full studio: the S1 script with tool('transform') rules on the left, the Field Notes spread on the canvas, and the inspector, layers and rules panels on the right
The full studio: the S1 script with tool('transform') rules on the left, the Field Notes spread on the canvas, and the inspector, layers and rules panels on the right
Small Spells: a page of glyphs placed in the cells of a constrained grid
Small Spells: a page of glyphs placed in the cells of a constrained grid
A refused edit: scaling the woodcut keeper to 0.3 is stopped with the rule's reason, Under 30 mm the woodcut hatching turns to mush, while the inspector shows its position and size
A refused edit: scaling the woodcut keeper to 0.3 is stopped with the rule's reason, Under 30 mm the woodcut hatching turns to mush, while the inspector shows its position and size
Night Static: seeded stickers of keys, eyes, hands and moons scattered over a purple shader sky
Night Static: seeded stickers of keys, eyes, hands and moons scattered over a purple shader sky
The Hold L to turn, R to scale example: The Parade page on the canvas with the DS twin, its two screens and buttons, beside it
The Hold L to turn, R to scale example: The Parade page on the canvas with the DS twin, its two screens and buttons, beside it
The cover of The Pink Vitrine, a museum catalogue with a pink clay creature in a framed plate
The cover of The Pink Vitrine, a museum catalogue with a pink clay creature in a framed plate
Rules added while it runs: a handler adds a strict minimum-size rule when SELECT is pressed, with the rule panel and the Half Size page of shrinking glyphs
Rules added while it runs: a handler adds a strict minimum-size rule when SELECT is pressed, with the rule panel and the Half Size page of shrinking glyphs
The cover of The Night Market of Ulan Tor: riso blue type, a pink sun and a blue clay squid
The cover of The Night Market of Ulan Tor: riso blue type, a pink sun and a blue clay squid
Pens that place things: the bones and stitch pen tools in the toolbar and the DS tool strip, with the Ossuary Road page and what the rules said
Pens that place things: the bones and stitch pen tools in the toolbar and the DS tool strip, with the Ossuary Road page and what the rules said
A spread of The Werm Who Wanted a Hat, a comic with clay actors in coloured panels and speech captions
A spread of The Werm Who Wanted a Hat, a comic with clay actors in coloured panels and speech captions
The Library tab: a grid of cut-outs and drawings that scripts can find and collage
The Library tab: a grid of cut-outs and drawings that scripts can find and collage
A Specimen of Ornaments: a cover framed by repeated borders, with a rosette of eyes around a red spiral
A Specimen of Ornaments: a cover framed by repeated borders, with a rosette of eyes around a red spiral