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Computational concepts, their technological language and the hybridisation of creative practice have been successfully explored in Media Arts for a few decades now. Digital was a narrative, a tool and a concept, an aesthetic and political playground of sorts. These experiments created a notion of the digital artisan and creative technologist on the one hand and enabled a new view of intellectual property on the other. They widened a pathway to participation, collaboration and co-creation in creative software development, looking critically at the software as cultural production as well as technological advance.

This book documents conversations between artists, typographers, designers, developers and software engineers involved in Libre Graphics, an independent, self-organised, international community revolving around Free, Libre, Open Source software (F/LOSS). Libre Graphics resembles the community of Media arts of the late twentieth Century, in so far that it is using software as a departure point for creative exploration of design practice. In some cases it adopts software development processes and applies them to graphic design, using version control and platforms such as GitHub, but it also banks on a paradigm shift that Free Software offers – an active engagement with software to bend it, fork it, reshape it – and in that it establishes conversations with a developers community that haven't taken place before.

This pathway was, however, at moments full of tension, created by diverging views on what the development process entails and what it might mean. The conversations brought together in this book resulted from the need to discuss those complex issues and to adress the differences and similarities between design, design production, Free Culture and software development. As in theatre, where it is said that _conflict drives the plot forward_, so it does here. It makes us think harder about the ethics of our practices while we develop tools and technologies for the benefit of all.

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The Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) was brought to my attention in 2012 as an interesting example of dialogue between creative types and developers. The event was running since 2006 and was originally conceived as an annual gathering for discussions about Free and Open Source software used in graphics. At the time I was teaching at the University of Westminster for nearly ten years. The subject was computers, arts and design and it took a variety of forms; sometimes focused on graphic design, sometimes on contemporary media practice, interaction design, software design and mysterious hypermedia. F/LOSS was part of my artistic practice for many years, but its inclusion to the UK Higher Education was a real challenge. My frustration with difficult computer departments grew exponentially year by year and LGM looked like a place to visit and get much needed support.
Super fast-forward to Madrid in April 2013: I landed. Little did I know that this journey would change everything. Firstly, the wonderfully diverse group of people present: artists, designers, software developers, typographers, interface designers, more software developers! It was very exciting listening to talks, overhearing conversations in breaks, observing group discussions and slowly engaging with the Libre Graphics community. Being there to witness how far the F/LOSS community has come was so heartwarming and uplifting, that my enthusiasm was soaring.

The main reason for my attendance at the Madrid LGM was to join the launch of a network of Free Culture aware educators in art, music and design education.[^]{http://eightycolumn.net/} Aymeric Mansoux and his colleagues from the Willem De Kooning Academie and the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam convened the first ever meeting of the network with the aim to map out a landscape of current educational efforts as well as to share experiences. I was aware of Aymeric's efforts through his activities with GOTO10 and the _FLOSS+Art_ book[@devalkmansoux:2008:flossart] that they published a couple of years before we finally met. Free Culture was deeply embedded in his artistic and educational practice, and it was really good to have someone like him set the course of discussion.

Lo' and behold the conversation started – we sat in a big circle in the middle of Medialab Prado. The introduction round began, and I thought: there are so many people using F/LOSS in their teaching! Short courses, long courses, BA courses, MA courses, summer schools, all sorts! There were so many solutions presented for overcoming institutional barricades, Adobe marriages and Apple hostages. Individual efforts and group efforts, long term and short, a whole world of conventional curriculums as well as a variety of educational experimentations were presented. Just sitting there, listening about shared troubles and achievements was enough to give me a new surge of energy to explore new strategies for engaging BA level students with F/LOS tools and communities.

Taking part in LGM 2013 was a useful experience that has informed my art and educational practice since. It was clear from the gathering that F/LOSS is not a ghetto for idealists and techno fetishists – it was ready for an average user, it was ready for a specialist user, it was ready for all and what is most important the communication lines were open. Given that Linux distributions extend the life of a computer by at least ten years, in combination with the likes of Libre Graphics, Open Video and a plethora of other F/LOS software, the benefits are manyfold, important for all and not to be ignored by any form of creative practice worldwide.

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Libre Graphics seems to offer a very exciting transformation of graphic design practice through implementation of F/LOS software development and production processes. A hybridisation across these often separated fields of practice that take under consideration openness and freedom to create, copy, manipulate and distribute, while contributing to the development  of visual communication itself. All this may lease a new life to an over-commercialised graphic design practice, banalised by mainstream culture.

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This book brings together reflections on collaboration and co-creation in graphic design, typography and desktop publishing, but also on gender issues and inclusion to the Libre Graphics community. It offers a paradigm shift, supported by historical research into graphic and type design practice, that creates strong arguments to re-engage with the tools of production. The conversations conducted give an overview of a variety of practices and experiences which show the need for more conversations and which can help educate designers and developers alike. It gives detailed descriptions of the design processes, productions and potential trade-offs when engaged in software design and development while producing designed artefacts. It points to the importance of transparent software development, breaking stereotypes and establishing a new image of the designer-developer combo, a fresh perspective of mutual respect between disciplines and a desire to engage in exchange of knowledge that is beneficial beyond what any proprietary software could ever be.

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Larisa Blazic is a media artist living and working in London. Her interests range from creative collaborations to intersections between video art and architecture. As senior lecturer at the Faculty of Media, Arts and Design of the University of Westminster, she is currently developing a master's program on F/LOSS art & design.