TheFactory an overview of editorial toolchains

This website presents a selection of editorial projects that employ code and programming as central components of printed publication production, thereby reconfiguring editorial production toolchains. Many of the projects examined rely on web-to-print approaches—using web technologies to design and generate printed publications—while others extend beyond this framework. These projects are embedded in professional production workflows, involving the printing of several hundred or several thousand copies by industrial printers. Excluding practices associated with fanzines or micro-publishing, the cases presented belong to structured publishing processes with large-scale distribution.

The projects under consideration have a variety of editorial characteristics: some stand out for their rich text, others for their emphasis on images, as in exhibition catalogs, and still others for the complexity of their layout or production, as in the case of Médor magazine. There are also approaches where an entire collection is produced using web-to-print, as is the case with the Interventions collection from C&F édition, or publications where each work is designed according to the same principle, but without the use of tools such as Paged.js, as is the case with Abrüpt éditions. All these projects are part of a contemporary approach that combines graphic design and digital technologies, and share a desire to work in a spirit of documentation, open resources, collaboration, and sharing.

Beyond the presentation of projects, the website adopts an analytical perspective aimed at the technical examination of these editorial workflows and their associated ecosystems. By documenting tools, methods, and infrastructural configurations, the website seeks to constitute a shared reference resource for research and practice in computational and code-based editorial production.

This overview is based in particular on the research work of Julie Blanc, Composing with web technologies¹, Antoine Fauchié, Fabriquer des éditions. Éditer des fabriques², Yann Trividic’s presentation of collaborative publishing projects as part of EPE at Ésad Valence³ and the web to print library archive⁴.

Text to be developed coming soon with :

Open design, maker - entraide - Fabrique - Permacomputing - Éditorialisation - Versionner - Chaîne de publication

Blanc Julie, Composing with web technologies. Collective instrumental genesis for the development of a community of practice for graphic designers, Thesis, Université Paris 8, Vincennes – Saint Denis, 2023. (note : phd.julie-blanc.fr)

Blanc Julie, Maudet Nolwenn, Code ↔︎ Design graphique, Dix ans de relations. Graphisme en France, 2022

Bosqué Camille, Open design. Fabrication numérique et mouvement maker. B42, 2021

Bourassa, R., Haute, L. et Rouffineau, G. (2018). Devenirs numériques de l’édition. Sciences du Design, 8(2), 27-33. https://doi.org/10.3917/sdd.008.0027.

Éditions numériques, Sciences du Design, 2018/2 n° 8, Presses Universitaires de France

Juhel, Q. (2018). Les outils du design graphique. Sciences du Design, 8(2), 18-21. https://doi.org/10.3917/sdd.008.0018.

Fauchié Antoine, Producing editions. Editing factories. Reconfiguring technical editorial processes and new epistemological models, Thesis, 2023, (note : these.quaternum.net)

Fauchié, A. et Parisot, T. (2018). Repenser les chaînes de publication par l’intégration des pratiques du développement logiciel. Sciences du Design, 8(2), 45-56. https://doi.org/10.3917/sdd.008.0045.

Fauchié, Antoine, Une chaîne de publication inspirée du web, 2017(note : https://www.quaternum.net/2017/03/13/une-chaine-de-publication-inspiree-du-web/)

Ludovico, Alessandro. Post-digital print : la mutation de l’édition depuis 1894 (Traduit par Marie-Mathilde Bortolotti). Paris : B42, 2016.

Schiffrin André, L’argent et les mots, La fabrique éditions, 2010

Servigne Pablo, Chapelle Gauthier, L’Entraide, L’autre loi de la jungle, LLL, 2017

Vitali-Rosati M. Qu’est-ce que l’éditorialisation ? Sens public, 2016(note : http://sens-public.org/article1184.html)

Permacomputing Aesthetics: Potential and Limits of Constraints in Computational Art, Design and Culture, Mansoux A., Barok D., Howell B., Ville-Matias H., 2023