Monday 29 October 2018

Visiting Professional: Village (Ben Holmes)

Village Books : an independent book shop based in Leeds, working with young designers, international and local, curating various contemporary publications and books from art, design, travel, fashion, photography etc.

Exhibition in upstairs gallery - from local artists, designers, international/ students to get exposure; everything is in collaboration with the artists and non-profit and not for hire.

Why Self Publishing?

  • Book is a promotional tool to get people's attention; only looking at you work, seeing it, holding it, feeling it and focusing only on it for even a short amount of time.
  • Book is an artefact; creating a physical and visual material of the project. Making a physical manifestation can somehow draw a line and making a concrete evidence of the 'end point' of a project or an idea. *Nourished Journal, Library Paper
  • Book is an art; the book itself is the art, not the content in it. Working with the form and aspects of the book and creating art form through it.
  • Book an an opportunity as to collaborate; having the opportunity to work in collaboration within a book very beneficial for a graphic designer; you have the influence on reader's views, influence on how the message can be received, influence on how readers can experience the book. 
  • Book is a product; commercial value of a book; having consideration on how the book can be used as promotion and how it can attract people's attention and successfully make them buy the book, keep it and possibly share it with people come the true value of the product of the book. 
What they look for in a book submission
  • Concept of the book; the foundation and the most important aspect of the book; it has to be clear and the book itself should communicate it as well in order to be clearly understood and communicate to it's audience. *
  • Design of the book; working on how the book can be perceived, *Self Publish Be Happy (London)
  • Format of the book: *Till Death Do Us Part, *Funny Money
  • Printing Techniques: how images are printed on the book is considered. Is the printing unique to that one book? How does the paper stock relate to the printing technique used for the book?*This is the same ocean
  • Binding of the Book
How to sell your book?

  • Are you gonna make a limited edition of books for a higher prices or a mass produced books to be sold to everyone.
  • Think about the price -> the final price need to drive the product, think about where you're going to sell your book (the distributor of the book). production cost, distribution costs etc.
  • Distribution of the books 
  • Promotion of the book; on the internet or in shops? book launches, exhibitions for the book; great way to interact and sell to people *Offprint Tate 
Book Examples
  • *Ukrainian Street Dogs 
  • *Holy Water Zine - concept heavy; idea of presenting religious iconography and alcohol as equal things, creating links and ideas towards the concept.
  • *Gold Dust - demonstrating the 'real people' and cut through the preconceived stereotypes people have of a certain country (Ghana). 
Advice 
  • Self criticising - always crit the book, think about how the elements of the book realte to the concept of the book.
  • Always look for objective crits
  • Start small - less is more, does it say what it needs to say
  • Make mistakes -> mistakes can improve the work, try things out
  • Support others 

https://villagebooks.co/

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