Festival2012/Submit/ F/LOSS workflows for grassroots publications
- Title of session: F/LOSS workflows for grassroots publications
- Your name and affiliation: Ana Isabel Carvalho, ginger coons and Ricardo Lafuente, editors of Libre Graphics magazine
- Session format: Learning Lab
Contents
What will your session or activity allow people to make, learn or do?
Learn about the keychain of F/LOSS tools available to produce a digital or printed publication. We will deal with software and systems that allow and facilitate collaborative design methodologies such as version control, IRC channels, wikis and mailing lists and see how these can be integrated in a publication and design workflow.
We'll briefly introduce the participants to the F/LOSS design software 'suite' which includes:
- Inkscape, fo vector editing
- Scribus, for desktop publishing
- GIMP, for bitmap editing
- Fontforge, for font editing
Git will be our choice for the version control software and the main focus for this lab around collaborative design for a publication. The Libre Graphics magazine will serve as a case study to present and share. By the end of the session we expect participants to understand the basics of Git -- things such as repository creation, commit and merge -- and integrate version control it in a design workflow.
How do you see that working?
Participants act in small editorial teams to use collaborative F/LOSS methods for the creation of assets for a publication. Each team takes on a specific task, discussing their work on IRC, creating outlines in a wiki and using version control to collect and organize their assets. Either the workshop organizers or a team devoted to design create the final product.
How will you deal with 5, 15, 50 participants?
5 participants: One team works together to produce two short articles and a small collection of images. The workshop organizers collect those assets into a small publication. 15 participants: Three teams, segmented into different task groups, create a variety of assets using collaborative methods. If enough participants have an interest in the design of the publication, one team might pursue layout as its task. If not, layout of the publication will be done by the workshop organizers. 50 participants: Ten teams, segmented into different task groups, will create a variety of assets using collaborative methods. One team, with the assistance of the organizers, will be tasked with collecting the assets together into a formatted publication.
How long within your session before someone else can teach this?
IRC: 15 minutes Wikis: 30 minutes Version control: 60 minutes
What do you see as outcomes after the festival?
Participants will have a better understanding of how a suite of collaboration tools can help them to organize their understanding and publication of important issues. They will be equipped to further explore these new modes of collaboration. They will additionally be equipped to transfer their new knowledge, using it to open up expanded spaces of creative collaboration in written and visual work.
