This should prick the ears of bookbinders, screen printers, letterpress operations and the like who are looking for another revenue stream. Running workshops in which people create their own books, posters or artwork could be a real money-spinner and a few have already begun to capitalise on the trend. Such is the success of these schemes, that some of the big commercial printers have even found a way of getting involved. However, running a workshop is not an easy win – there are numerous potential barriers that need to be hurdled if it is to add value and not drain resources from the core business.
Workshops are nothing new, of course. Sharing the art of print has been a practice many have been offering for many years. Chrissie Charlton set up letterpress printers Harrington & Squires (H&S) in 2001 and began running workshops five years later. Similarly, Shepherds bookbinders, located on Southampton Row in London and with studios in Wiltshire, started running workshops 15 years ago.
"The sorts of people who attend our workshops are very varied," says Charlton. "We’ve had a science teacher, a film director, architects, a 12-year-old boy and his mum and lots of lawyers, oddly enough."
Where things have changed is in the level of demand and the importance of the additional revenue to the main business. For the latter, any extra cash a company can get is crucial as margins for general print work shrink. Meanwhile, on the demand side, it’s not just about people kicking back against an automated world, there is also more interest because of the massive decrease in the number of print-based courses being offered by colleges and universities.
This combination has meant that courses are heavily oversubscribed. Charlton says she has enough interest in her one-day workshops to hold a class each day, Shepherds says its beginners’ classes are almost always full, while workshops run by the likes of PrintClub London sell out within hours of being offered online. With prices ranging from around £40 to £165, the money-making potential is clear.
Ongoing earnings
The courses are also a great promotional tool for companies and there are additional opportunities to sell people materials to practice the craft at home – an ongoing revenue stream after the workshop has ended.
It’s a successful model and one that other parts of print have looked to get involved with. Arthur Stitt, client services director at design and print co-operative Calverts, says the workshop model is not something that should be the preserve of bookbinders and the like. He says they can be used by companies of all sizes to promote what the company does by taking print buyers and art students through the factory to demonstrate the company’s services.
"Print can be mystifying at times, even for the people who work in it," he says. "Things like paper are difficult to talk about by email or by phone; you really have to feel it."
Stitt says setting aside two hours for these ‘paper jams’ have already brought in new business and saved time. Numerous other large businesses have used this as a route into workshops too.
But before you start typing up adverts, remember that this will only ever be an additional revenue stream, it cannot be allowed to disrupt your core business or interfere with day-to-day production.
"It does bring in revenue and that’s really helpful to have, but it’s all about balance," says Charlton, explaining that because the H&S studios are relatively small, she has to be careful not to take on so many classes that there is no time and space to create H&S’s own products and contracted work.
While Shepherds’ London studios have a separate training room for workshops, founder of the company Rob Shepherd reports that they can still be disruptive to the business’s normal activities.
"You really have to teach five or six people at a time to make it financially worthwhile having a member of staff out of action for two days," he says. "Courses are a lot of work."
Another potential issue for the core business is that you risk creating competition for yourself. There are plenty of examples of successful businesses that have been born out of the tutelage of another business: for example, many of chef Marco Pierre White’s numerous prodigies, including Gordon Ramsay, are now competing with his business. However, in print, the instances of this are rare and there is also the consideration that being good enough to spawn a respected new business can bring additional kudos rather than creating further issues.
The relationship between your business and workshops gets even more complicated if the workshop is not directly related to your product range. For example, Francis Atterbury, partner at book production specialist Hurtwood Press, has been contemplating taking the company’s old letterpress kit out of storage, but he is a little sceptical as to whether this is really a good idea.
His main reservation concerns branding. For a company that has an ethos of using the right process for the desired result, being associated with any one process could be detrimental to its image.
"Hurtwood is very much at the forefront of digital printing," says Atterbury. "I really don’t want people to start thinking that we’re doing letterpress. Then you get endless phone calls from people wanting to make business cards and that’s just not what we do."
On-site dangers
There are also practical considerations for anyone wishing to set up their own workshops, mainly around the issues of allowing the general public into working industrial premises. As a limited company, Shepherds already pays for public liability insurance and Rob Shepherd says that the simple equipment used reduces the likelihood of accidents, but he admits that being sued is still a worry.
"We’re in an increasingly litigious world, so if you let the general public into your premises you do run certain risks," he says.
Paying for public liability isn’t going to be something many printers will want to splash out on. Graham Moss founded Incline Press in Oldham in 1993 and decided, when recession took hold three years ago, to diversify his business into workshops. Holding classes in his workshop, however, just wasn’t feasible.
"I have too many printing presses lying around on the shopfloor and a fair bit of heavy machinery, so having the public in the workshop would be too chancy," he says. "Also my margins are so tight I’d have to put my prices up to cover a year’s worth of insurance."
Moss was able to overcome this obstacle by teaching at the Hot Bed Press printing studio in nearby Salford. Here he earns £300 for teaching four to six people for eight hours, a helpful boost to his income.
Whether you pay for the insurance or find other premises where insurance has been covered already, there is then the problem that not everyone is a born teacher.
"I don’t think you need a teaching degree," says Moss, "but you do need some understanding of how to explain processes and build on what people already know."
The barriers may be extensive, then, but in a difficult economic climate, it seems printers would be well-advised to let people in on their trade. Whether a company is small or large-scale, going back to basics and teaching a willing public print’s dark arts seems to be a very profitable way of making money.
TOP TIPS: STARTING A WORKSHOP
• How accessible is your craft? The easier it is to understand, the more popular it’s likely to be
• Simple technologies also reduce safety risks. Even seemingly obvious advice, such as cutting away from your hand, should be given at the start of any workshop
• Play to your strengths Just because you are teaching basic skills doesn’t mean they aren’t of significant value to more sophisticated potential customers, such as designers, for whom understanding the fundamentals of print will inform their creative processes
• Timing Christmas can be a really popular time for workshops, with people wanting to produce handmade cards and gifts. But beware of interfering with core business activities at this busy time
• Don’t forget the basics Where will people go to the toilet? Do you have disabled access? Will you be offering your students lunch?
WORKSHOP REVIEW: SHEPHERDS’ BEGINNERS BOOKBINDING COURSE
It’s 10am on a Thursday morning and five strangers and I are sat around a table feeling paper. Absorbed in studiously bending the paper back and forth to gauge its grain direction, we’ve already left the drizzly bustle of Southampton Row, just above Shepherds’ basement training room, far behind.
"Grain direction is at the heart of everything we do," explains Rob Shepherd, managing director of the bindery and our tutor for the day, telling us that printers often get it wrong, and that he too has committed the cardinal sin of binding a book with the paper grain running the wrong way.
Already my fellow beginner binders and I have a pleasing sense of being let in on trade secrets - who knew a sheet of seemingly unremarkable A4 paper could provide such a diverting 15 minutes?
As we begin to fold our paper into quarters, we also get a sense of how few trade secrets are actually needed to create a simple yet fairly impressive-looking notebook. Rob is insistent about this right from the start.
"I’ve never gotten over how you can turn a few sheets of paper into a book so easily. It’s magical really."
As we cut the folded edges of our paper with a shoe knife and mine crumple and tear, I start wishing that I’d spent less time trying to out-trendy people at art college many moons ago, and more time on craft. My sewing skills are not much better. Attaching the mull and end papers to the book block by sewing along three holes looks wonderfully simple when Rob does it. But as everyone diligently sets to work I’m left furtively glancing at what art student Holly O’Meara and teacher James Sharp are doing either side of me.
"Ah, you’ve gone for a knot on the outside instead of inside, quite a lot of binders do that" says Rob, giving me far more credit than I, staring in confusion at where my needle and thread have somehow ended up, in fact deserve.
Encouraged by the small triumph of sewing our pages together, the class starts to chat, and it emerges that everyone has some sort of crafty background. For Holly and James, bookbinding will, they hope, be a means of presenting their own artwork, and for Angelika Howard a way of engaging with the teenagers she works with as an art therapist.
"I’ve just always loved this sort of thing," says 56-year-old biology technician and self-professed paper engineering fanatic Lisa Dawkins. "I went on a rubber stamping course a couple of weeks ago and was so excited when I went home that I couldn’t sleep that night!"
In the face of such dedication, I’m reassured about my inferior paper-cutting and knot-tying skills: activities I’d mistakenly assumed I’d mastered in primary school.
Fortunately my formative years were not entirely wasted. I manage the gluing involved in constructing the book jacket, or square, relatively easily.
But, as with the folding and cutting processes, there is still a certain technique to observe. Rob shows us how to apply the glue in vigorous dabs from the centre of the book cloth that will hold our two boards together, and tells us how, in past centuries, craftsmen would be wholly responsible for this one job, working at incredible speed with fast-drying animal glue. Having taken until nearly lunchtime to get this far, I’m suddenly glad that my livelihood doesn’t depend on my cutting and sticking skills.
After securing the book cloth to our boards, we cover each side with beautifully patterned Japanese paper, tucking the edges and corners in neatly with a simple bone-folder tool. And this is when it gets exciting. Suddenly something emerges that resembles a proper book.
"The important thing to remember is that this can all be done at home," says Rob, as he takes our book blocks out of the nipping press and explains that heavy books or a cheap iron weight from a junk shop will do just as well. "I’m always trying to think of ways of substituting materials and tools," he says, telling us that dental floss – unused, I’m presuming - can be used at a push.
The final stage is ‘casing in’ our book blocks. We glue one end-paper to the inside of the cover, separating this from our pages with a layer of greaseproof paper, then flip the book over to do the same on the other side. And voilà: from six sheets of A4 paper, two boards, a bit of book cloth, patterned paper, glue, and a fairly inept but enthusiastic craftswoman, a book is born.
As the books are collected together for another go in the press, I can’t help feeling proud of my slightly wonky, glue-smeared creation. I might even give it to mum for her birthday, the lucky lady.
"You can all make your own Christmas presents now," says Rob, as if reading my mind. There’s a moment’s pause as we all contemplate how long it’s taken to create just one 110x140mm notebook. "Start now," says Angelika.
Shepherds’ one- and two-day beginner bookbinding classes cost £110 and £160.
VOX POPS
Holly O’Meara, 22, art student at Nottingham Trent"This course was the only binding course I could find. I do lots of workshops, but the teaching’s not always this good. I did a ceramics workshop recently and it was a bit awkward, as the guy didn’t really look at us."
Kazuko Harris, 72, lecturer in art and history"I do all sorts of courses now I’m semi-retired, like cooking and carpentry. I’ve been meaning to do this binding course for years. I think my interest in this sort of thing comes from being Japanese – we’re taught origami and box-making from a young age."
Angelika Howard, 60, art therapist"I keep journals and bind them myself, but now I’ll know how to do it properly rather then just loosely stitching them together. I’ll definitely be buying some more specialist materials from the shop upstairs before I go."
