Social Manufacturing and Ozines 

Searching for answers 

His quest is toward making online magazines (he calls “ozines”) but his roots are in fine art printmaking presses and printmaking experience that goes with the presses. As each of the presses he designed goes on the web, he examines the ways to make them.

Social manufacturing ozine 

Quirky came up as a press manufacturing option. Quirky is an example of “social manufacturing,” where people wove factors of the social networking phenomenon into ways to solve the problems of getting a new product to market. At that time I was looking for ways to produce the new WeeWoodie Rembrandt Press in volumes large enough to get into homes and schools, and from the description I read about social manufacturing, it seemed worth a try.

Therefore I put the prototype WeeWoodie Rembrandt Press into the Quirky venue and collected enough votes of confidence to be encouraging; however, not enough votes to take the process to the next level. Quirky adopted an element of gamification in its approach to social manufacturing: the concept has to be popular enough to get the attention of the Quirky manufacturing team. If you do this, their team knows how to get the product made.

I learned from this experience that the Halfwood Press Workshop Association can use the Quirky model within its own configuration, that is, among the engineers, artisans, and skill-holders who make up the group. With a half-dozen members in the HWPWA (the acronym is pronounced “hoop-wah”) who have come to know the idea in its many dimensions,* a network exists which may be able to do what Quirky does.

The need for Ozines

From the beginning—ten years ago—the internet has been the only way that I was able to reach out to the people who are interested in small, portable, “designer” etching presses. The few times that I attempted to use print for advertising (i.e., buying a display ad) were completely without effect, which made me chary of trying it again until this year.

Meanwhile, the web has impinged on traditional print magazines and journals to the extent that these have made online magazines available alongside their print versions. Lately, online magazines have grown up where there was no printed equivalent. These are niche magazines which do not have a market base big enough to pay the cost of printed magazine production and distribution.

I loved printmaking-related magazines when I could get them, but they seemed unable to sustain for more than a few years; and I suppose it was for economic reasons. I have a theory that the failure of printmaking magazines, newsletters and journals is partly due to printmaking having been promoted as a form of visual art that owes its credence to painting and drawing. To me, printmaking is an art form that grew out of performance and social networks and its relationship to the visual arts has been a support role.

Therefore, I reason that if the basis for printmaking is a social, cultural, technological and performance or time-based experience, then a magazine for printmaking would look different than those that I used to receive in the mail. In fact, my concept of a magazine for the printmaking world of the future would be ten or a dozen magazines online, each one dealing with a factor related to the printmaking experience.

As part of my study to develop the PrintmakingWorld Ozine, I study a British news article on social or crowdsourcing magazines. At first glance, I thought the article was about financing a magazine startup. It turned out it was about getting content or editorial ideas for existing magazines, both paper-based and online magazines. My study takes ten days, with one of the ten points as a focus.

Rachel Bartlett: The Ninth suggestion “Consider sales strategy and timing’

“While there are certain challenges to take into consideration with these projects, such as the time needed to carry out effective crowd sourcing, many of the publishers reported healthy sales of the special editions and say the idea makes sense for sparking interest in the brand, particularly in quieter months.

“The co-created Olivia edition, for example, is sold "during the slow season", Toiminen said. "It really enhances both ad sales and newsstand sales because it's something special and it gets a lot of PR every time, and a lot of attention."

“Femina doubled the price of its Made By You edition, Rai said, but "circulation numbers went up" regardless. "We were sold out within the first week," he said. "So the opportunities are huge". Ms. White added that while "there's no miracle magic wand" when it comes to boosting sales by significant volumes, the experience can work to unite readers in a more meaningful way, giving the "feeling of a club".

"It feels very inclusive," she explained. "You are a Company girl, you know you're a Company girl. And in turn they are then spreading your word for you.

"And it's got to be a two-way street, so I hope by including them as much as possible we're showing a level of respect for our readership, and I think that's where brands need to go. It has to be a two-way conversation."

 

*Many dimensions means everything from etching presses to chocolate bars, serious games to fine art prints, 3D-printed presses, videos and comic books. Uppermost among the goals are two factors: education and jobs for people who agree that art, craft and design education is important in planning for Earth’s human life sustainability.