This page describes the period the archive on this site covers: the editorial commissions, the print editions and the books made through the workshop near Bath, which ran from 2010 until 2019. The practice continues — Dettmer is still making and publishing artists’ books. What follows is the record of the work collected here, not an account of a career that stopped.
From Editorial Illustration to the Press
Dettmer graduated in graphic design from Bristol Polytechnic in 1991 and worked as a freelance illustrator from that point, mainly for international newspapers and magazines. Editorial illustration is a discipline of constraints: a fixed column width, a subject someone else chose, a deadline measured in hours, never weeks, and an idea that has to land before the reader turns the page. Those constraints leave marks on everything else he made.
An MA in illustration at Kingston University changed the output and left the approach alone. After it he began creating and publishing screen printed books — not illustrating other people’s texts, but making the whole object, from the concept and the writing through to pulling the ink himself.
What the Influences Actually Explain
Three influences are named consistently across the work: Russian Constructivist design, Polish poster art, and Renaissance painting. That combination looks eclectic until you consider what screen printing can and cannot do.
A screen lays down one flat colour at a time. It does not blend, and every additional colour is another screen, another registration, another drying cycle. Constructivist design and Polish poster work are both built from flat colour, hard edges and a compositional logic that carries meaning through arrangement instead of through modelling — which is to say, both are already solving the problem the medium sets. The Renaissance influence pulls in the other direction, and shows up in how the pictures are staged: figures placed deliberately in a constructed space, not arranged decoratively on a surface.
Flat colour, hard edges, and meaning carried by arrangement.
The Workshop Near Bath
The printing was done in a workshop near Bath, run with open access to other artists rather than as a closed studio. Open access means the press, the exposure unit and the drying racks are available to people who do not own that equipment — which for screen printing is the entire barrier to entry. Everything else about the process is cheap and learnable; the vacuum bed and the UV unit are not.
The setting turns up in the work. One book began when a chicken from the free range farm next door flew the fence and walked into the workshop, and he decided the birds deserved more recognition than they usually get.
Recognition
Two awards are recorded against the books. In 2011 the work took first prize, best in show, at Handmade & Bound, the London book, art and zine fair. In 2012 it was joint winner of the bookartbookshop tenth anniversary artists’ book competition.
The books were shown at international artists’ book fairs in London, New York and Germany. Fairs matter more in this field than galleries do: an artists’ book is made to be handled, unfolded and read in sequence, and a table where someone can pick it up tells you more than a vitrine.
One of the structures he devised, a cross-cut fold used in the science fiction books, was registered as a design under number 6008862 — a small detail, but a telling one about how the folding was treated. The fold is not packaging for the pictures. It is part of how the story is told.
How the Books Reach Print
The books were self published under the ottoGraphic and ottoBooks names, with their own ISBN block, and printed in the workshop rather than sent out to a trade printer. That is why the edition sizes read the way they do: a test edition of thirty, a first edition of forty five, a signed edition of one hundred, a print run of eighty split with the person who commissioned it. Each one is the number of times a set of screens could reasonably be pulled before the job stopped being worth the setup.
Editions were signed and numbered. Several went out of print and were not reprinted, which in screen printing is a practical fact rather than a marketing decision — once the screens are reclaimed and the emulsion stripped, remaking an edition means remaking the stencils.
The Open Access Workshop
The workshop at Marshfield ran from 2010 to 2019 with open access, which means other printmakers could book time on the equipment. The exposure unit, the vacuum bed and the washout booth were available to people who did not own them, which is how Dettmer had worked himself for the fifteen years before, at Spike Print in Bristol and at East London Printmakers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Otto Dettmer?
A graphic artist working as an illustrator, screen printer and book artist. He graduated in graphic design from Bristol Polytechnic in 1991 and illustrated for international newspapers and magazines until 2023. An MA in illustration at Kingston University in 1996 turned the work towards screen printed books, which he has been making and publishing ever since.
What is ottoGraphic?
The name the work is published and shown under, covering the editorial illustration, the screen print editions and the artists’ books. A second name, ottoBooks, was used for the book catalogue.
What kind of books are these?
Screen printed picture books for adults, in small signed editions. Most were written, drawn, printed, folded and bound by the same person, in runs of between thirty and one hundred copies.
Where were these books printed?
In a workshop near Bath that ran from 2010 to 2019, with open access so other artists could use the press, the exposure unit and the drying racks rather than having to own them.
What awards did the work receive?
First prize, best in show, at Handmade & Bound, the London book, art and zine fair in 2011, and joint winner of the bookartbookshop tenth anniversary artists’ book competition in 2012.
Where were the books shown?
At international artists’ book fairs in London, New York and Germany.