Exchange in the app

A print exchange is a portfolio swap: twenty printmakers each send twenty prints, and each goes home with nineteen other people's work. Organizing one is a spreadsheet, a stack of envelopes and a mail merge. The Exchange module is the part of that which a printmaker should not have to build twice.

The Exchange surface lists what you organize and what you take part in. It also has a Join button for entering a code somebody sent you.

Starting an exchange

Tap + New exchange.

Step	What you set
Type	Portfolio swap, Mail art, Themed, Class, Other
Specification	Name, theme, description, and what participants are agreeing to: format, how many prints, how they come back
Size	Participant capacity, and the edition size per participant
Deadlines	Submission deadline and completion deadline
Fee	Participation fee and currency, or free

"Save as draft" saves now and lets you edit every field later. "Create & open for entries" opens it immediately.

The specification is the thing people will argue about later, so write it properly: paper, dimensions, ink, trim. The fields are there because the arguments are predictable.

The join code

Every exchange gets a short join code and a QR code pointing at its join link. Copy link puts the URL on the clipboard; show the QR at a class or a print fair.

The header carries the code, the QR, the capacity, the deadlines and the fee totals: how much has been collected, and how many are outstanding.

The roster

The Roster tab is the participants. Add them one at a time with + Add participant, or tap Import CSV and bring a list in. The importer expects name,email,address.

Each entry holds a name, email, mailing address, a bio for the colophon, the title of the print they are sending, payment status (No fee, Unpaid, Paid, Refunded) and submission status (Pending, Sent, Received, Complete).

Removing someone archives their entry rather than deleting it, so the record of what happened stays intact.

Submissions

The Submissions tab tracks the two directions separately: sent, and arrived. Mark a print received, add a photo of it, and note the condition. "Curled in transit, flattening under weights" is the kind of note that saves a conversation in March.

Mark all received is there for the day the big box turns up.

Messages

A message board for the exchange. Post to everyone, or to one participant. The messages are stored on this iPad, so this is your record of what you told people and when, not a live conversation.

The colophon

A portfolio exchange usually ships with a colophon: the booklet that says what the exchange was and who was in it.

Write a dedication and an introduction, then Generate colophon PDF. The booklet is built from the roster: print titles and bios come from each participant's entry, photos from the submission proofs.

Page	Contents
Cover	The exchange name
Dedication	One page, if you wrote one
Index	One entry per participant
Artist pages	One per participant
Back page	The specification and the join code

It comes out A4 and is saved with the exchange, so you can regenerate it after the roster changes.

Mailing labels

The Labels tab makes an address sheet from the roster. Pick the stock (Avery L7160 on A4, or Avery 5160 on US Letter) and it lays out the grid, counts the sheets, and adds your return address.

It prints at 1:1. Print at 100%, no fit-to-page, or the labels will not sit on the backing sheet.

Participants without an address are listed by name so you know exactly who to chase.

Committing a project

From inside a project, go to Exchange in the project menu and commit it. Brayer adds you to the roster and links the edition, so the impressions you send stay traceable.

You have one entry per exchange. Picking another project moves the entry, and it asks first.

Once a project is committed, you can send impressions from its edition. Choose up to the exchange's edition size. Those impressions move to gifted, with the exchange recorded as their location, so they leave your saleable stock and stay in your ledger. See Editions.

How the app relates to brayer.app

The Exchange module on the iPad is a local record. Everything it holds is on this iPad, and joining by code records the exchange here so you can track your own sending and receiving. It does not sync with the website in this version, and there is no networking behind the join code.

The website at brayer.app runs the other half. Participants who do not have an iPad, or do not have the app, use a free web account: they open the join link, join the exchange, mark their prints sent with a photo, mark what arrives, and read the message board there.

If you are organizing an exchange with people outside the app, run the roster where your participants are, and use the app's colophon, labels and impression tracking for your own side of it.

For participants: Joining with a code.