This is most of the team (above) working last night on producing the first hand-made newspaper in the UK.

The complete paper - a four page publication not far off the Berliner size - was distributed this morning at select central London locations (see the front page below).

Every word and every image and every mark of any kind in The Manual was drawn by a team of volunteers - mostly illustrators. The printing was also by hand, silk screened at The Print Club in Dalston. Each copy of the paper has been numbered in a limited edition of around 100.

This one-off non-profit project was organised by Shakeup Media to make a point about the future of print. We hope to show that handmade qualities can transform newspapers from ‘junk’ to collectable. We also want to demonstrate the power of print as a medium by using ink and paper in a manner that emphasises their unique touch, smell and texture.

(We are using 100% recycled 170gsm B2 size sheets folded in half and Neptune water-based ink with 10% retarder).

The journalism in The Manual is a work in progress but we are aiming for a style that is more explanatory than simply factual - the motto of the paper is “Today Explained”. And of course, being only four pages long, the paper must be extremely selective about the events that it covers.

What do we want to achieve? In our wildest dreams we would find a sponsor that wanted to produce a paper like this regularly. Otherwise we are happy simply to have done it once and worked with so many talented and generous illustrators and printers.

The photographs here are all copyright of the award-winning Caroline Irby (www.carolineirby.com) and you are welcome to use them on the understanding that we’ll ask you later for your normal reproduction fee.

For any further follow-up please call Richard Addis on 07899 968 427 or richard (AT) shakeupmedia.com.