Offal is a zine designed by Richard Turley and Julia Schäfer using Microsoft Word

Offal is not the prettiest thing on the shelf (we’re talking about the meat here), but it’s meant to be consumed – and who cares if a steak is pretty if it’s inedible? A new literary publishing experiment of the same name operates under the same premise. It’s a project, helmed by a CEO operating under the pseudonym Jeremy Portal, that pastes together the “offcuts” of artistic and literary projects, and serves them up in a terrine-like form for our consumption.

In honour of the cut-and-paste approach, Offal’s first zine has been designed by Richard Turley and Julia Schäfer using Microsoft Word. The major tools Richard and Julia had to actually design were things like shape rotation, text highlighting and some preset typefaces. “Working with Word allows you to work fast and not be precious with the pages,” says Julia. “I think this is something Richard and I bond over – the speed in which things are made don’t allow you to overthink it and yes, limitations are always exciting and freeing in a way.”

While the designers “​​fucked heavily” with the Microsoft interface to make Offal issue one, it needed to still look like a Word document. “Writers type their words into Word (or the Apple or Google equivalent), so to use that interface means you see the words in the context of their creation,” says Richard. They also wanted to purposefully throw some limitations in the way of the design process to get out of the loop of creating refined work with “too good” tools.

It’s important to note that Offal is more than just a zine. It began life in the public eye as a slightly terrifying radio show broadcast weekly on WhatsApp, with material written by team members and other writers, and performed by AI. The zine, which was being worked on in the dark as the radio show was emerging into the light, is just another arm to this gradually mutating enterprise. In fact, the use of generated voice software feels akin to the decision to use Microsoft Word – a functional but jarring way to present the work of others in a synthesised whole.

The first issue of the zine, which goes on sale later this month, features a hodgepodge of matter. CEO Jeremy Portal said choosing a favourite would be like “attempting to choose a successor from among my many, many children”, but some of the content includes a recipe for Leviathan, 4D song lyrics by artist Gemma Anderson, an opera by cult electronic musician Actress, and an unsolicited business proposal for Thom Yorke. (Offal is pitching some initial chapters to Thom for ghostwriter sci-fi thrillers bearing his name with the help of AI text generators, submitted in a “tabulated format, awaiting selection.” We hope they are successful.)