Melbourne Sirius

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: State Library of Victoria creative fellow (2013/14) Dr Rachel Buchanan commissioned Stephen Banham to design her artist newspaper, 'Melbourne Sirius'. 'Sirius' is an illustrated obituary to the 525 dead newspapers that have been published in Melbourne's CBD between 1838 and 2014. It also features 175 photographs of the mastheads of defunct papers and 24 footnotes which were pocket-sized stories about certain papers. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: Banham's typographic expertise shaped the content and the look of 'Melbourne Sirius'. He suggested Buchanan photograph newspaper mastheads, he suggested footnotes for the small stories and he drew on his extensive historical knowledge of type design to create a cover that referenced both the star (Sirius) in the paper's title and the red and white edition masthead stamps of the 20th century. Inside the paper, exquisite typesetting used negative space to create a memorial cross between the names of fallen papers. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: Melbourne Sirius is held in the rare book collections at the National Library of Australia and every state library. It received significant peer review in print, online, on radio and in 'Meanjin', Australia's oldest literary magazine. Coverage included: 'A newspaper about the history of newspapers - Melbourne Sirius', ABC Radio National (27 Feb 2014); Andrew Stephens, 'Melbourne's many newspapers feature in a one-off paper, Sirius', The Age, 2 March 2014 and 'Borrowed Time', cover story The Age Life and Style, 15 Feb 2014; Myriam Robin 'Modern, subversive and short-lived', Crikey 28 Feb 2014; Deborah Stone, 'In memorium: the newspaper' 28 Feb 2014; John van Tiggelen, 'Editor's Note March 2014', The Monthly; Rachel Buchanan, 'This is Sirius!' vol 73, no 2, Meanjin 2014; Hilary Harper discusses Melbourne Sirius, 774 ABC Melbourne, 1 March 2014; State Library of Victoria blog, 'Melbourne's newest newspaper hits the streets Monday' 28 Feb 2014.