Want to curate and/or submit a series of vents to @vent_diagrams? Please do!!

We LOVE sharing out others’ vent series!

To start a conversation, send a DM or email us at vent.diagrams@gmail.com!

OUR PROCESS FOR SERIES RE-POSTING AND COLLABORATING:

1: Reach out to us to say you want to post a series on @vent_diagrams!! 

2: Share your series. We plan in one of two ways:

  1. Make a google slideshow with images uploaded and captions below. OR

  2. Send us your images (via gmail or dropbox) and put all your captions in a google doc.

3: Make a plan. We plan our series out in advance and know when we’ll begin and end with each series we post. We’ll go over the series criteria below and  agree on a deadline for when we’d like to start posting. Then, help you with whichever parts you’d like our help with and follow up with you to make sure you’re on track for our start time.

4: Refining the series. We can give as much or as little feedback as you’d like on the captions and the vents themselves.  We’ll talk and agree about what kind of feedback you want before we start the feedback process.  

5: Formatting: We’ll make sure every image and caption meets the criteria below. We can help you with the technical options for how to do these things on a computer if that’s helpful (we use Instagram, Canva, google slides, or photoshop depending on the series).

6: Post the series! We will not start posting a series until the whole series is done.


@VENT_DIAGRAMS BEST PRACTICES:

These learnings have been developed as we’ve worked on many series of our own and with other contributors. See some examples here www.ventdiagrams.com/archive

  • Basics of a series:

    • Sets of 3: A “series” of vent diagrams is a set of 3, 6 or 9 instagram posts that are tied together by a common theme.  A theme can be broad or narrow, it’s up to you! Sometimes the easiest way to find the connective tissue is to just come up with a title for the series.

    • Made on your own or with a group! We love posting/reposting series made by groups as part of a workshop, class or political education/organizing project!  If you’re using vents in these contexts, reach out and we are happy to help you think through how to make a series that reflects this out to the world.

  • Visual:

    • Related but not the same: The images should be visually aligned but not exactly the same, so that people can follow which ones they’ve read before. This means the images in a series should all have some of the same colors or textures or materials but also each vent in the series should have a distinguishing visual characteristic besides just the words. It took us a while to figure out that this very much supports folks to follow the story of a series.

    • Show some context: To visually ground the series in a perspective, we always use some kind of image to frame or contextualize where the series came from---a picture of the serie’s creator, of the vents being made in a workshop context, of a picture related to the theme.  We’re always but we think a series works best with some other kind of visual context in the mix! We’d really like for you to include a picture of you or the group making the vent in the center image, as the first and last image, or as an image to flip through behind a vent diagram or center image.

  • Digital:

    • Squares: All of the series’ images need to be squares so that they work in an Instagram grid. Add a background of some sort if necessary to make a square.

    • Show your work! Put your handle or the handle of the artists/contributor in the corner of each of your images whenever possible.

  • Captions:

    • Word count: captions should (briefly) make clear who you are and what you think about the vents you made/curated. Instagram captions are max of 2,200 characters per post; on average this will give you room for about 300 words.

    • Access for visually impaired: we end each caption with an image description of the images we’re posting. This needs to fit in the word count. See examples @vent_diagrams.