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Design Blog Design Blog » Design Triennial » Indie Publishing

Indie Publishing

One of the themes running through Design Life Now is the opening up of media to everyday citizens. There’s been an explosion of “social media”—Web sites that allow people to build communities and talk with each other on-line. (Blogs like this are one example.)

This communications revolution is affecting print as well digital media. Fueled by the possibility of on-line distribution, more and more authors are taking the plunge and publishing their own books. Self-publishing used to be denigrated as “vanity press,” but a new generation would rather call it “independent.” Self-published books are ready to take their place alongside indie music, film, theater, and more.

On January 11, the museum is running a program on “Indie Publishing.” The event is hosted by myself and Nicholas Blechman, the Triennial-featured designer who created Empire, the acclaimed visual anthology in which some of the world’s most influential graphic artists and writers express collective outrage against the current state of international affairs.

Nicholas and I will talk about how to start building your own publishing “empire,” one page at a time. From making a homemade zine to hand out to your friends to producing a hardcover book that you can sell on line, ordinary citizens can take a shot at publishing using commonly available resources.

The event is pretty much booked to capacity at this point, but we’ll follow up here with links to tools and resources, and an assessment of how the evening went.

In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you about publishing. We’re at a moment in time when authors want to try their hand at graphic design. (Warning: there’s a learning curve.) Yet the opportunity is there for designers, too: more and more of us want to become authors, so the new media economy can work for us, too! Is indie publishing a threat to professional standards, or a chance hear from new voices?

About the Author: Ellen Lupton is Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

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Comments

  1. I am curious to know of other ‘indie publishers’ who are circumventing traditional publishing channels and taking advantage of print-on-demand services such as those at www.lulu.com. I am a book artist who has been involved in various forms of ‘indie publishing’ over the past 15 years. I entered the fray by publishing my own books using color and black and white photocopier technology in the late 1980’s. Over the years I have used fine press (lithography, letterpress, etching, etc.) and low tech and unique printing methods with various results. Currently I am curating an exhibition on the influence of offset printing on the genre of artists books (opening at the Center for Book Arts, NYC, in fall 2007). I am acutely aware of the impact of desk top publishing (the primary tools for current do-it-yourself publishing opportunities). Broadly speaking, from the 1960’s to the early 1990’s, offset printing afforded book artist’s opportunities to print in color. In the mid-1990’s desk top printers entered the market at a moderately affordable price point to allow home publishing. In recent years print on demand services — whether offered through the Apple™ website or other vendors — is having an impact on the production of artist’s books and any other book art projects. The most notable example is the photo album. …I am curious to know if anyone (on this blog) has used print on demand publishers for ‘creative’ works. What has been your experience? How do you think this will impact ‘indie publishing’? Can you recommend specific vendors?

    Tony | Oct 29, 11:33 AM

  2. One thing that makes print-on-demand services such as Lulu.com different from both offset printing and desktop publishing is that these Lulu and many other print-on-demand services provide a way to distribute your independent book, not just to print it. The Internet has made it possible for small producers to get their work into the hands of an audience—even a small one. Without on-line distribution, it is hard to find one’s readers without meeting them in person. I’m curious, like Tony, how the book arts community is using print-on-demand. Person-to-person publishing is an exciting development.

    Ellen Lupton | Oct 29, 11:33 AM

  3. Speaking with an artists’ book distributor the other day, I asked about the impact of print-on-demand (POD). To paraphrase, the distributor said the community is “getting its feet wet,” and “at last entering the 21st century.” On the other hand, he was quick to emphasize that, like so many new technologies, one doesn’t replace the other (think theater to television, print to digital). Rather, it presents new expressive possibilities and alters our perceptions of the traditional media (think Benjaminian aura, or nostalgia for Pong).

    On the other-other hand, the work I viewed had not yet truly embraced POD, or even offset. One work in particular used digital printing (the Epson ink-jets popular among AB and printmakers lately) to emulate a unique, handpainted book. To me, this is like pointing a television camera at a theater proscenium. The works I find most interesting (and aspire to make) fully embrace POD-ness. I await the future.

    Jenny | Oct 29, 11:34 AM

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