"Margaret Hamilton wasn’t supposed to invent the modern concept of software and land men on the moon. It was 1960, not a time when women were encouraged to seek out high-powered technical work."
Rocket (wo)Man is a 25 page publication about Margaret Hamilton, the programmer behind the Apollo 11 launch and one of the founding women of computer science. Researched and designed over the course of 5 weeks, this project allowed me to study the interaction of type hierarchies and their integration with images.
Page Numbering
Since the book chronologically explores Margaret Hamilton's contributions to the Apollo 11 launch, the page that describes the actual launch was labelled as T-0:00:00 rather than Page 1. All pages that come before the Apollo 11 launch count backwards in liftoff time, and all pages after the Apollo 11 launch count forwards in liftoff time.
Printing / Binding Method
Since all of Margaret Hamilton's code was printed on dot matrix paper, I wanted to print this booklet on dot matrix paper as well. In order to do so without access to a dot matrix printer, the spreads were printed backwards onto T-shirt transfer papers. These were then heat pressed onto to the dot matrix paper and French folded, then glued with perfect binding. Finally, the booklet was encased with heavy manilla cardstock in order to give it an authentic case-file feel.
This gives the project a unique textile quality that is contextually reminiscent of the dot matrix paper that the Apollo source code was originally printed on.
