Listings and Features for the Open Studios Directory
For exhibitions and events taking place on both Open Studio weekends.
We’ve divided this into sections so it’s easier to navigate:
Information and Fees
Step 1 - Prepare your text
Step 2 - Prepare your images
Helpful tips about images
Step 3: Register your Listing and Feature
Registering for a “Listing and Feature” means :
Emma Gregory at THISS 2024
Your exhibition/installation will be part of Site Festival
You’ll be open at the same time as Open Studios
The information will be on the Open Studio routes in the directory (which is based on location) and also in the Feature section.
If you would like to take advantage of being listed in the Open Studio route pages, you must be open on both Open Studio weekends.
Opening Times for Open Studios are now 11am-5pm, not 6pm. Artists can extend their opening times, but all artists must be available to open their studios between 11am and 5pm on both weekends - 14th & 15th and 21st & 22nd June 2025
The deadline for registering is 28th February 2025.
Fees
1/3 page : £281
1/2 page or 2/3 page : £366
Full page : £440
What’s the difference between Open Studios and Listings and Features?
With a Listing and Feature you get :
A profile with information about the exhibition specifically, within the main part of the directory. It flows in terms of the route, so that visitors can find it easily on the map.
A listing in the back of the directory with full information about the exhibition.
An online listing in the Festival Programme.
A dot on the route map.
Listing: A 1/3 page column in the main pages of the Open Studios directory - the position will depend on the location of the exhibition and where it sits on a route. This is will be the same size as an Open Studios artist profile, but designed slightly differently.
Feature: You will also get a feature in the “Featured Events” section of the directory - either one third, one half (or two thirds) or a full page.
Extras that are not included with a Listing and Feature are:
Working for the Payback Scheme to get up to £50 of your fee paid back to you for doing up to 5 hours work.
SVA membership and addition to the Artist Network
Publicity for artists as individuals and taking part in the Site Exhibition
If you’d like these, then you’ll need to register as an Open Studios artist.
Step 1 : Prepare your text
You will need:
A short description of your event and/or collective - up to 165 characters
Directions to your studio - up to 85 characters
Description of exhibition/collective - in 50 words, 130 words, and 240 words.
Optional : A link to one social media account and/or one webpage
We recommend looking through previous directories, such as the 2024 directory, to get an idea for descriptions and images that work really well.
Why do you ask for different lengths of text?
We ask for 50 words, 130 words and 240 words because we won’t know what space is available until the design is being laid out, so we need a variety of lengths to fit into different spaces.
TIP : We recommend typing your text in a Word document, Google Doc or similar. This is so you can use their ‘character count’ tool, then copy and paste the text into the form.
Links
We only have limited space in the directory, so we are only asking for one social media link and one website link for the whole collective. However you can give us all of your artists’ links in the separate box, which we can include on the website.
Advice about links in the directory
For a collective, we would suggest giving us a social media account that will feature all of your artists, if you have one.
For the website link we’re aware that some might not have resources to create a website for a single event, but it can be really valuable to have a place to keep your information updated. For the printed directory we can include a concise web address, but from our website you could link to free tools such as :
a Facebook event
Linktree which can link to everyone's social media accounts on a single page.
Another way is to get all your information in one place is to set up a temporary webpage like Kazz did for Sensus Materia for example. If you'd like more advice, feel free to email kazz@sva.org.uk.
Step 2 : Prepare your images
Moina Moin : Cover artwork for Site Festival 2024
Your images are crucial for representing your practice and event. As artists and designers ourselves, we take a lot of care to ensure that the directory displays your artwork to the highest quality, which is why we have all of these following guidelines.
Your images need to be:
3-6 different images : Once your images are submitted in your registration our designers choose what works best for the layout and next to other artwork, so having three choices from different images is essential. For Listings and Features we’ve now added the option to upload up to six images on the form, but three are required.
Images that don't have important detail at the very edge - this is because the design takes the images to the "bleed edge" for printing. So if your image ends up on the side edge of a page, then it may get cropped into slightly by the printing. All images have an edge along the top, so please be aware that you will lose 3mm off the top of the image. In printing terms it’s called the “bleed edge”. There’s a diagram at the bottom of this page to explain more.
Solely images of artwork - no bold logos or text please.
High quality for the directory and website, so they need to be between 1mb and 10mb, and a high number of pixels (i.e. you cannot just scale the image up because the quality is then lost).
Cropped as a square : if they’re not cropped, our directory designers have to spend extra time doing this for you, and may crop into your artwork in a way that you wouldn’t.
Named and numbered so we know the artwork is yours so rename your files with your surname first, and in this format : CHEN.A.1.jpg. This is so we can identify who has provided each image. You can either put the surname from the billing information, or the name of the collective.
Between 1mb and 10mb so we recommend making the images at least 1500x1500 pixels, and you should find that the file size is above 1mb. The form will not accept files over 10mb each, so please take note.
Either .jpg or a .png files.
Different to previous years of Site Festival publicity so that it’s different every year!
We also recommend looking through previous directories, such as the 2024 directory, to get an idea for descriptions and images that work really well.
Helpful tips about images
Why do I lose 3mm of my image when the directory is printed?
The design takes the images to the "bleed edge" for printing so we ask for images that don't have important detail/features at the very edge of the images.
So if your image ends up on the side edge of a page, then it may get cropped on one side by the printing. All images have an edge along the top of each page, so please be aware that you will lose 3mm off the top of the image. In printing terms it’s called the “bleed edge”.
For example, if you end up on the left page layout, then you will lose up to 3mm on the left edge and 3mm on the top edge. If you end up on the right page layout then you will lose up to 3mm on the right edge as well as the top edge.
Why do I need to rename my image files?
We receive around 300-500 images from artists, and the only way we can identify who they belong to is from their filename.
So if you submit your image called “IMG.2057” we won’t know that your image belongs to you!
Give me an example of renaming filenames?
If your name is Alex Chen, then you would call your filenames...
Chen.A.1.jpg
Chen.A.2.jpg
Chen.A.3.jpg
How do I rename my filename?
The exact steps depend on which device you’re using, however these tutorials may help:
Android
Mac OS
Windows 10
iPhone and iPad
What if my image file is too big for the registration form?
If you’re getting an error message it might be because your image file isn’t between 1mb and 10mb. If you are not sure how to resize your images you could download software such as Photoshop, ordownload free software such as Gimp from Gimp.org, or there are many online websites. We found this one to be easy to use, and you don’t need to pay for it : www.canva.com/photo-editor
Image examples
Here are some Listing and Feature images that we’ve selected over the years. Images that either:
show the studio space
represent the theme of the exhibition
or cleverly combines different artworks into one image
The Features Section
This is an example of the Feature section where your information will also be. We use a range of images, and quite often more than one of yours is selected, so do send us a range of high quality images to choose from.
Step 3 : Register
Complete the Listings and Features Registration form, and if you need any help email kazz@sva.org.uk to arrange an appointment.