The Family Book.
The Introduction.
01. The family book is something i’ve wanted to create for sometime. Leveraging my design skillset and background in print seems like an obvious way to create a DIY / homemade christmas present.
02. Leading up to December i organised photography and a questionnaires for my entire, extended family. It's not as easy as you might think, my family are spread across the world. England, Denmark and Australia.
03. A large chunk of time was spent selecting an appropriate photographer overseas whom i’ve never met before. Each photographer was briefed to shoot with the same lighting setup and portraiture style. Within Australia, i shot all the photography myself. All had to be consistent and uniform across the whole book, you know, to make us look together!
04. Sorting through hundreds of gigabytes of images made for some very late nights. I edited every photo in the book myself, it was important to capture the ‘rawness’ and ‘this is my REAL family’ But i also didn't want to make pimples or dark eyes a reason to resent the book.
05. The whole book was produced and created in 90% secrecy, 90% because it was hard for my family not to catch onto something when their Australian relative requests they make a 4 hour trip to a photographers studio. Each country had an ‘accomplice agent’ (Family member) who helped me organise the schedule and completion of the questionnaire.
There are 4 main sections to the family book. Introduction, giving background into each of our family surnames and heritage, as well as the general history of where we all came from. Photography, every family member was photographed in a professional studio by either myself or overseas freelancers. Questionnaires, each member completed a list of questions in order to accompany their photographs, all answering a suite of personal and family-related questions. Locations, towards the end of the book there is a stylised version of our family locations, in a map form, done so in a very minimal but informational style.