OUGD602 - Start up Wednesdays

As Ben and I are hoping to kickstart WYS next year an independent studio, we decided to attend the short courses on starting a new business and developing ourselves after graduating university, we attended as many of the sessions we could as we found these useful as we had previously not thought about the business and money side of things as much. Below show the notes I made on each of the sessions attended.

Being self employed

must learn a bit about everything however sales and marketing are most important.

starting up

profit, income and expenses

Printers find it easier to get work as a LTD company

changingcourse.com

have multiple sources of income

spend 4 days a week doing boring freelance work

2 days a week building business

provide a platform to expand the business.

Tax free until you earn £11,500

tax return tells government how much money you make each year up to the 5th April.

Don't pay tax until 31st Jan

29% of profits in tax

every business has:

sales (eg. £20,000)

costs/ expenses/ purchases (5000)

profit (15,000)

Copyright Laws 

How to use copyright

Who owns copyright

Post-it trick - in order to prove that you were the creator of something you can post it to yourself to prove that you are the original creator (kept sealed)

How long does copyright last - 70 years

Copyright restrictions 

Creative Commons 

Public domain 

Moral rights - Paternity/integrity/privacy 

Marketing and PR 

Building marketing approach 

7p's of marketing (Product, price, place, promo, people, physical evidence and process) 

Understand your product - Who are your competitors and target audience

Setting objectives - What do we want to achieve

40% Marketing 50% Making 10% Admin (time) 

Features and benefits - Whats in it for the user

Pricing a service 

Measuring success 

Action Plan - Where do we want to be in 6/12/18 months 

Business Structure

Sole Trader - easy to set up (GOV.UK) easy to go bankrupt 

Limited (LTD) Company - Has a business structure and business is libable to invadiual

LLP Limited Liability Partnership 

Checking business names - Company House website  

TM - Free to use 

R - Registration fee

Keeping records (Tax, transactions, achieve value, ownership)

Managing Money 

Budgeting 

Costing and pricing as an artist

Cash flow 

Accounts 

Overheads - Fixed cost and variable costs

Research and Development 

Labour 

Time costing (what is my time worth) 

Targets (income)

Profit and loss 

OUGD602 - Risograph Workshop

After speaking with one of the artists in residence at The Tetley about their Risograph machine we found out that Orlando, a tutor on our course often puts on courses and workshops to learn about zine making at the Tetley. Me and Ben decided to book onto this workshop to learn about Risograph and the other equipment the have available. Luckily for us, we were the only two people attending the workshop meaning we had the best opportunity to learn about Riso and how it can be used within our practice. We learnt how unpredictable Risograph can be because of how old the printers usually are. This can often cause the drum to bleed leaving unwanted marks on the resulting image. Despite this, Riso printing has benefits such as the ability to produce large print runs for a lower cost. Once the printed work has been transferred onto the drum the only print cost will be for paper. Because of this, Riso is useful for when a large quantity of prints are being produced.

Ben and I had the opportunity to experiment with Risograph ourselves, producing a poster to see how the process works for ourselves. The result is seen below:

OUGD602 - Presentation layout

To stay consistent through WYS and my PPP module I decided to produce a layout for presentations. This layout can be used for an presentations I have left to do on the course as well as if I ever need to present a piece of work to a client in the future.  The design of this has been kept simple to work well with our identity showing only the logotype and contact info.

OUGD602 - Print Fairs

Print fairs can bbe a good way to promote ourselves as a studio and publishing house. In the future we hope to have a stall at various print fairs however, for now it will be useful to visit as many people as we can. We have already gone to the Artist Book fair at the Tetley (seen in an earlier blog) however below shows a list of other book fairs we hope to go to.

OUGD602 - Competitors

As part of the research we completed as part of the WYS identity we looked into our competitors and how we differ from them. This blog post looks more in depth into who they are and how they can influence our studio progression.

Kiosk

Catalogue

Palm Studios

(other publishing houses)

OUGD602 - Promo Pack

As part of the identity for WYS, Ben and I created a promotional pack to send out to people, raising awareness for WYS. This pack will be used to invite artists to work with us, invite professionals to any events we put on and also to sell to our target audience through our site. We have produced a list of creatives we will send the promo pack to as well as why we are getting in contact with them.

Rose Nordin (OOMK)

Oliver Shaw (Catalogue)

Nick Greenbank (Kiosk)

Antenne Books

Village Bookstore

SJ Hocket (Wonder Room Studios)

Housework Press

AA Bronson (NY Print Fair)

Liam Hodges

SCRT Store

Nasir Mazhar

+ any photographers we want to work with

OUGD602 - WYS within PPP

Ben and I have recently discussed the possibility of continuing WYS next year as an independent graphic design studio and publishing house. This was something we had always aspired to do as we had never wanted to work our way up at a large studio from junior designer but rather work on the briefs we enjoy. After Developing WYS within extended practice, we looked at created a brand which represents us as designers. This means using the assets we have created to work freelance as designers and photographers. Doing work under WYS will promote the business and help us become more recognised within the creative industry.

The first part of the promotion of our studio, whilst things are in the early stages is networking. The deliverables we have produced within the WYS identity have helped this significantly. Our business cards and website have been useful when talking about what we do to potential clients and customers. They have meant we can better explain ourself but as there is a physical aspect, the audience will usually revisit our site or contact us directly.

Although this has already been useful, in the future their importance will become more apparent as we start talking to bigger and more influential people  within the creative industry. So far our business cards have been given to photographers we wish to work with, people within our identified target audience who we believe may be interested in the products and those me have met, who we aspire to be like and may help us with feedback. These business cards can be seen below.

As seen in the images of our business cards above, mine and Ben's cards differ slightly meaning we stand out when both cards are seen together. Having a portrait style card layout is unusual however works well to catch the attention of our audience.