Last week I mentioned that I’m over Project Life.
*GASP*
I know. A little shocking and kind of blasphemous. I promise I’m not a hater or an asshole. I’m just not into the Project Life thing this year. In my post last week I explained why I’m over Project Life this year and I promised that I’d be back early this week with more on how exactly I plan to memory-keep (yes, it’s a verb) in 2015. So. Here I am. With my planz. Hopefully you find them as exciting as I do. In all fairness, though, they might not be immediately exciting/gratifying/inspiring because I tend to be really horrible at explaining my memory keeping plans to anyone (at least in real life), but that’s also partly because I suck at making up my mind about exactly what I want to do because THERE’S ALWAYS SO-DAMN-MANY IDEAS.
(BTW: Shout out to Cathy for being my virtual sounding board over the last couple weeks. She’s listened to my ideas and helped me figure out exactly what I’m going for, which has obviously been beyond helpful. And shout out to both Shannon and RJ for listening to me talk about photos and words and my plans to combine the two this year for like, 22 hours a day for the past month. I’m genuinely shocked that neither of them have punched me in the face (yet) out of sheer annoyance at all the times I’ve absolutely-for-sure-definitely committed to a plan, just to break it 10 minutes later and end up going back to it three days after that. It takes a special type of person to put up with me.)
Anyway. This year I plan to follow a less restrictive formula than I did with Project Life. In 2013 and 2014 I documented each week by the week. In 2015 I don’t plan to do that. I want to have more control over how I tell the stories that I choose to tell; I want the freedom to dedicate as many pages to a given story as I want. Most importantly, I really want the ability to highlight the stories that take up more than just a moment or a day; the stories that kind of linger in the background through the weeks that make up a month – like the story of potty training, or the story of Shannon moving in. Those are the types of stories that define our lives right now, and they’re the type of stories that take up way more than a day and way more than a 3×4 card or two of journaling.
Sure, these things are possible using a pocket page system like Project Life, but I also want a visually cleaner and less time consuming system. I’m sick of designing and printing and cutting/trimming and arranging and rearranging and photographing and editing and posting…every. single. week. I’m also not a fan of the partitioned look of page protectors, and I’m ready for a step up in quality.
This year I’m going to document life monthly. And I’m going to do so by making a new Artifact Uprising soft cover photo book each month. I’m hoping to design incredibly clean books that have a cohesive aesthetic flow from first page to last (which was not achievable for me using Project Life), and that tell the stories that I want to tell using as many (or as little) words as I want. I’m using Pink Ronnie‘s phenomenal (and beyond impressive and inspiring) Artifact Uprising photo books as a starting point for inspiration. My photography style is totally different than hers, but holy fuck you guys. Her overall design and aesthetic is on-freaking-point.
The plan right now is to use the same size book each month (vertical 8.5 x 11), as well as the same font pairings and handful of page designs. This should be easy since I’ve already picked out my font pairings (District Thin Pro and Bentham) and AU has a not-too-large-it’s-overhwleming-but-not-too-limiting array of pre-designed page designs (and offers the ability to create your own if you reaaalllly need to). And it should help to keep the cohesion between the books each month while still allowing enough room for variability and versatility in terms of the photos and stories on which each individual month’s book focuses. It might sound like a lot, but I have a pretty firm grasp on everything so far. I think. I’ve been uploading photos to my AU photo-book-in-progress each evening and typing up corresponding journaling every few days, but with the new semester officially beginning today it’s entirely possible that I fall way behind on this project. Hopefully not, but it’s something I have to be prepared for. I’d rather fracture my memory-keeping efforts for a few months than my GPA forever. Ya heard?
Also: To make shit a little more interesting, I plan to integrate a few different monthly “challenges” along the way. I don’t have as many ideas as there are months, and I’m hesitant to force ideas just to have a full year of ’em, but the ones I do have are pretty rad. There’s some run of the mill kind of things like “(at least) a photo a day” and “all black and white” and “all film, only film”, but there’s also some ones I’ve never seen anywhere before like “give my kids a pocket camera for the month and use their photos to tell the month’s story.” I’m beyond stoked about that one.
I don’t yet know which months will end up with a theme and which ones won’t. Except for January. Kind of. In January I’m really working hard to make sure I take at least one photo a day that will end up in our “January book”. I want the photos to be an accurate representation of our life right now, but I also want the photos to be well-composed and…pretty. So not only am I forcing myself to become more serious about documenting, but I’m helping hone my not-really-existent photography skills in the process. Win/win.
So. That’s my plan. I’m super stoked about it but I feel like it sounds way less exciting here than it does in my head. Womp. Just wait, though. You’ll see. Once my first AU book arrives it will all make sense. And it’s going to be way rad, guys. I PROMISE.
QUESTIONS: Do you guys have any questions for me, either about why I’m over Project Life, or about my memory keeping plan for 2015? Are you interested in joining along for any of the monthly “challenges” I mentioned (if I come up with a set schedule)? Do you have any other photography “challenge” ideas to add to the mix? How’s the weather where you are? Cold as balls? No? I hate you. It’s freezing here. I hate winter. And if you aren’t suffering through it too then I don’t really like you right now either.
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Related: My now-outdated plans for Project Life in 2015, how to get started with Project Life, my Project Life process, a handful of free Project Life photo templates, and a fun Shutterfly photo book I made.
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