If you’ve made it this far,
consider yourself a member!
If you love ART BOOKS, I wanna hear about it! Art Book Club was created for its members to share videos/writing/photos about their favorite art books in their personal collections.
How to contribute:
1. Sign HERE so that I can keep track of Art Book Club members and contact info.
2. Shoot a 2-minute video, snap some photos, or write a fun anecdote that celebrates your favorite art book. Whatever method you choose to talk about your collection, make sure you include some nice photos of what you are describing, so find a well-lit spot in your house or take them outside and show me your favorite spreads/images - visuals that will help to illustrate the things you are saying.
I want your collection and your thoughts about it to be represented in the exact manner that you are comfortable with. This is why I’m proposing these different ways to participate, all of which are completely acceptable and encouraged.
Before you begin shooting/writing, make sure that you are shooting with the phone oriented horizontally. Here is a document with some suggestions for things to talk about and some requests for photos of your books, just to document everything and keep all submissions looking uniform.
For video inspiration check out Amoeba Records’ What’s in My Bag? series to see people talking about their favorite records/cds or The Criterion Closet series, where directors and actors talk about the most significant films to their lives and careers. Now we are going to try it with art books! Your video(s) could be something like those examples, but make it your own and have fun with it! The world’s your oyster.
3. Send your submissions to me, in full size/resolution via this LINK. When you’re in the “Art Book Club” shared drive, click the “+ New” button on the left, then “New Folder”, and title it with “Your Name - Book Title” (create additional folders for additional book submissions) and then just drop your files in there. This is a reminder that what you send me can be rough and unedited. If you’re sending video submissions, please don’t send me like 30 bad takes. 1-4 takes would be ideal for me to edit your video.
Follow the project on Instagram! (also a good place to see examples of how your submission might be turned into a post).
If you have any questions, send me an email at JasonMFranks@gmail.com
Some of you might still be wondering…. what exactly IS an art book?
For the purposes of this project, it is any large format, image-heavy book (like a coffee table book). Often, but not always, these books showcase an artist’s or group of artists’ work, and document an art/design movement, technique, exhibition, photography, or architecture. They can be photographic or illustrated guides of some kind or even a wonderfully illustrated children’s book. They come with a broad range of formats and topics covered, but I think you get the idea. They’re bulky, they take up a lot of space, they have a presence in our homes almost like furniture, they enrich our lives and our work and we love ‘em!
Look to big art book companies like Phaidon and Taschen for prime examples.