Marketing and Publishing Materials
Case Study - Rezzable
It has taken me a while to be able to write about this unit. The biggest problem I have is trying to tease out ways for it to be relevant to the way I work as an artist. The unit is geared towards the entrepreneurial skills needed to bring a design product to market as a commercial venture, whereas my own practice focusses on making generally non-commercial work, the value of which lies in the dissemination of ideas.
the challenges in a nutshell:
- I am not a designer, I am an artist. design provides solutions whereas art asks questions. Artists and designers have different aims, research, production and organisational methods and success criteria.
- I am an academic, not a business person. I am excited by theory rather than products. I would rather be well received at a conference than sell work. I have a strong belief that ideas, knowledge and education are culturally valuable in and of themselves, regardless of whether or not they have commercial potential. I am creative and innovative, but not entrepreneurial.
- I am a dyed-in-the-wool socialist. This is something I haven't even thought about for a few years but this unit has made me challenge a lot of my long-held ideas, and having challenged them, I find them to be still valid, especially in the current economic and environmental crisis. My motto for a happy life would be "enough is plenty" and I find it very hard to be motivated by money.
In spite of these problems I find I am actually very interested in this unit, purely from an academic point of view. I do find business fascinating, even while knowing that it is not "my bag", so I have no problem with writing the case study and am enjoying the research, and I enjoy the presentation sessions.
Things which I CAN see how to apply to my working method:
CREATIVITY & INNOVATION - equally applicable to art and design.
BRANDING - as an artist, my name is my brand. I have some idea of what my current branding looks like from developing publicity materials for other projects and am fairly comfortable with moving this forward.
MARKETING - advertising, press, networking, web presence, events …
PRESENTATION & COMMUNICATION SKILLS - a big part of what I want to do involves presenting/talking and writing about my work. More practice and hints and tips are always good.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT - budgets, timeframes, workflows, co-collaborators, venues …
Things which need THINKING ABOUT DIFFERENTLY:
BUSINESS PLAN - I did a bit of research on business plans for artists. Most sources suggest treating it more like a personal career plan.
FUNDING - sources and structures for funding in the arts do exist but they are very different from those sought by commercial designers and require a different approach.
Things which I have MAJOR problems with:
MARKET RESEARCH - like most artists, I frequently visit exhibitions and events and keep abreast of current themes and issues in the artworld via the media. Beyond this, the concept of doing market research seems completely opposed to the way an artist works.
BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR
COMMERCIAL BUSINESS MODELS
