Friday, November 11, 2016

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01 - Shy Bairns #1 Crowdfunding

As a collective, we had no prior funding for this project. To raise funds for this publication the collective set up an online shop to take pre-orders, which included a bonus reward system, so that buyers could pledge money for the printing in return for a copy of the book, plus extra items such as posters and stickers.

There were many discussions within the group as to the price of the zine. As a collective one of our major concerns is accessibility to the arts, and therefore the price of our product should be cheap enough so that as large an audience as possible could purchase a copy. However we also would have to price the publication high enough in order to raise enough money to cover printing without having making a loss at the end of the project. As a compromise we priced the publication at £6, with optional £2 postage for those that could not collect their publications in person from one of the members of the group.

With this system we raised roughly £500, enough money to cover the printing costs and potentially have enough spare to prepare for a book launch or a follow up exhibition.

Working without a budget but also having to plan financially around the cost of production is an important, if unfortunate, skill many young and professional creatives have to learn without the appropriate backing and funding for artistic projects.