Build’s collaboration with Timothy Saccenti on Ritual Technology is a compelling example of contemporary editorial design as both archive and artefact — translating over two decades of Saccenti’s photography and direction into a single 300-page printed form.

Saccenti’s music industry work is a huge part of what that archive draws on. He’s shot and directed for Flying Lotus, Charli XCX, Squarepusher, Oneohtrix Point Never and M83, alongside Depeche Mode, LCD Soundsystem and Skrillex — by his own account, he tends to pick artists whose music he genuinely loves, moving between underground and mainstream worlds rather than sitting in either.

The book is structured around a CMYK colour-coded system, splitting and sequencing Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black imagery into four distinct sections, each opened by its own cryptic colour breaker. Build paired that with a coded typographic language built entirely from OCR-B’s character set, and finished the object itself with a UV-reactive foil cover that reveals hidden text under UV light — a nod to Saccenti’s own use of lighting in his work.

They worked with printing studio & long-term collaborators Generation Press, who brought the project to life.

Full breakdown, with process video, over on Studio.Build’s case study, spotted via visuelle.

It’s a genuinely stunning piece of editorial design, and I’ve seen it doing the rounds for months. I reached out to Tim directly and heard back — the book is currently in limited promo release.

images from studio.build