Missing Game  

A special online magazine  

It is because video games and casual online games are some of the progeny of the acts of printing since prehistoric times that an online printmaking magazine may find its money by crowd sourcing Proximates, the social printmaking game over time and space. 

What is needed is a game 

As I look for ways to start an online printmaking magazine that is original in every way, I think how printmaking evolved and, in a sense, is the ancestor of today’s video games, casual games, and social networks.

It follows, in my opinion, that a printmaking magazine should show some of these characteristics. Consider that playing card production was one of the early success stories of printmaking, also stamps and postcards and travel pictures. Entertainment, travel, souvenir-collecting—all these ordinary, everyday forms of printing played a part in bringing about today’s movie, TV and game industries.

In this line of thinking, I think my PrintmakingWorld Online magazines will always have a game in them. Crossword puzzles? Easy. Hidden Object Games? almost as easy. But what about social networking? Here’s where my original idea of Proximates (lately it is suggested that I call this “game” Print Pals because it’s a little like Pen Pals).

Right at this moment, as I am typing this essay, someone somewhere in the world is pulling a proof. Who are they? Where are they? When did they sign the print, and how did they sign it? How did they make the plate? What is the view outside their window, if they have a window? What’s happening in their professional life?

Proximates is somewhat like blogging, but there is an automation element so that when someone registers their print with moment they pulled the print (known as the moment number), they also register their latitude and longitude. This gives a spatial reference as well as a temporal or time reference to their action.

UK inspired

I get some of my best ideas by listening the people from England on TED talks, and also in a UK newsletter article by Rachel Bartlett. I am taking each of the ten points she gave us and seeing if the ideas fit my needs. Here is the third of ten points:

The UK view

One strategy which a number of the publishers have found useful in driving crowd sourcing efforts is to engage with the blogging community online. When Femina was trying to raise awareness about its 'Made by You' issue, for example, it worked with bloggers "who write on issues relating to women".

"We activated that network to make sure that they spoke to their readers and asked them to contribute to the Femina Made By You issue," he said. "They also had the added incentive that some of them would actually get published too," he added, explaining that as well as getting readers to write, the magazine also reached out to "experts in the field" including the bloggers, to share content.

"So they had an added incentive that they may be part of the Femina Made By You issue also". One of Company magazine's previous crowd sourcing projects was centered on the blogging community. Following the magazine's re-launch at the start of 2012, it turned its attention to bloggers as a way to reach its readership "through digital platforms", editor Victoria White said.

This involved liaising with "style bloggers" in terms of content in a "super bloggers issue", as well as creating the Style Blogger Awards. Bonnier Publications has also tapped into "the fashion blogger generation", with the introduction of an entirely new magazine with that audience in mind.

"We invited a bunch of fashion bloggers to create that concept," she said. "Some of them became a part of the editorial team, and there's always a part of the magazine done in Facebook with the fashion blogger community."

What’s the idea here?

The same approach might be useful in launching PrintmakingWorld Online, because there a plenty of printmakers around the world who blog and make YouTube videos about printmaking. The difference is, of course, that PrintmakingWorld Online does not have a parent, paper-based magazine to build on, as Femina, the example above has.

I may glean some ideas from Femina, nevertheless. For the moment, it is a game of hide-and-seek as I try to find more ways to launch PrintmakingWorld Online.