This is a book filled with creativity, imagination, and exploration. It is a book about trying something new. It is about opening up to a new idea and gaining respect for it. It’s a book of visual creations by people from around the world that have come together through the exploration of new things to create something beautiful.
In life, you don’t always know what is going to happen next. You have to work with what your dealt. You learn to try something new and make compromises. And when you try something new you can learn from your experience. And that is what this book is about.
How It Works
Artists from around the world have been invited to contribute to the book. Each of them will receive a creative task picked at random the Grab Bag. It could be a photo digitally manipulated photo from their youth. Or it could be an illustrated editorial about anything. They might have to design a building or illustrate what they had for breakfast. The only rule is that your creative task can’t be from your field of work or your area of expertise because the book is about learning to do new things with your creativity and exploring new ways of expressing yourself. Furthermore, each artist will have the option to also contribute a piece of their work that comes from the area of expertise. It could be something already created or something made specifically for the book.
There is a physical grab bag that will be used to choose the creative tasks for each person. This will be conducted by Ethan and the creative task will be emailed to the artist. The only rule is that your creative task can’t be from your field of work or your area of expertise because the book is about learnig to do new things with your creativity and exploring new ways of expressing yourself. If your creative task breaks this rule it will be put back in the Grab Bag and a new one will be hand picked. Once we have gone through all the tasks they will all be put back in and we will start over.
Publishing
Founded in the early 1900s, F+W is a publisher of special interest magazines and books in a broad variety of consumer enthusiast categories. The Company also operates book clubs, conferences, trade shows, Web sites and education programs, all focused on the same consumer hobbies and enthusiast subject areas where the magazines and book publishing programs specialize.
HOW Books (Graphic Design division of F+W Publications) offers a range of instructional and inspirational books for graphic designers of all experience levels. The HOW Design Conference is the single-largest gathering of graphic designers in the U.S. They publish HOW, Print, and ID, three of the top magazines in the industry.
The Grab Bag List
Building Design / Bumper Stickers / Pins and Buttons / Vinyl Record / T-Shirt Design / Skateboard Deck / Poster / Album Cover / Frisbee / Magazine Cover / Cereal Box / Pair of Shoes / Character Design / An Illustration / Draw three things you Bought / Draw What you ate Today / Create a Comic Strip / Draw What you did Today / Short Video / Short Animation / Short Documentary / Collage / Painting / Watercolor / Sculpture / Portrait / Ceramic Pot / Drawing / Digitally Manipulated Photo from Childhood / Several Photos that Tell a Story / Photos of Strangers / Wallpaper Pattern / Take a Picture of Yourself for a Week / Draw like or with a Child / Handwritten Typefaces / Represent Your Senses Visually / Design a Piece of Clothing
More Details
The book will feature 100 artists, be around 200 pages long, and will come out in Spring 2009. Each artists will have two images in the book (one of the creative task and one from there current field of work), a biography, and a short paragraph detailing their experience with the creative task.
Participate
If you would like to participate in the book there is still room left and still time. Please send an email with information and a link to your portfolio. Contact information can be found on the sidebar to the right. Thanks for considering being part of Grab Bag Book.
