Marie Otsuka

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Marie Otsuka is a type / graphic designer. Covering both print and web, her work involves reshaping given tools for communication. She designs platforms that highlight medium-specific processes, both in production and use. Marie holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she has taught classes in web programming, and a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Chicago.

Presenting with Roel Roscam Abbing

Low-Tech Magazine

Often the editors of Low-Tech Magazine get asked: "If you're so low-tech, then why do you have a website?" This question reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what 'low tech' is and can be. However it also spurred the idea to undertake a redesign of lowtechmagazine.com to try to answer that question.

In this talk we present https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com, a redesign of the blog that is self-hosted on a solar-powered server. The website is built in such a way that it is as light as possible in order to be self-hosted from a home connection using a solar powered single board computer. The talk will focus on how web design, in the wide sense, can use low tech methodologies. The advantage of which is to improve speed, accessibility, archiveability while minimizing the environmental impact and still looking great.

About Low Tech Magazine

Low-tech Magazine refuses to assume that every problem has a high-tech solution. A simple, sensible, but nevertheless controversial message; high-tech has become the idol of our society.

Instead, Low-tech Magazine talks about the potential of past and often forgotten knowledge and technologies when it comes to designing a sustainable society. Sometimes, these low-tech solutions can be copied without any changes.

More often, interesting possibilities arise when you combine old technology with new knowledge and new materials, or when you apply old concepts and traditional knowledge to modern technology.

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