Free Photobooks

A spread from the new free book, “Hotel El Morjane.” Photography by Petra Paulina Kohl and text by Maike Mia Höhne.

Democratic Books is a very cool non-profit project by DesignWork, a design firm in Cologne, Germany. The idea is simple: create top-quality photobooks that people can download free (as PDF files). The files are designed so you can print them on both sides of sheets of paper, and then fold the pages together to create beautiful, permanent, printed books.

Martin Parr and Gerry Badger have concluded that photobooks (en masse) contain the real “secret history” of photography. And this project seems like a win-win-win. Talented photographers get their work distributed worldwide, in a timely and cost-free manner (although without any immediate monetary compensation). The design firm gets to show off their creative chops and good ethics. And photo lovers get access to fine, current works of art — for free.

The DesignWork group says this:

“When we first started in June 2004, we wanted to publish good photography and give photographers the possibility to get their work published. Our aim is to bring the books to the people. By e-mail we reach around 3000 people in the world with our newsletter. We are widely linked in the internet. There are more than 1000 downloads per week.

“Over long-term we want to become the biggest open library for e-photo-books in the internet as well as a database of free information and research into contemporary photography.

“Why do we call it democratic?

“In our opinion democracy is basic human right, and we support the freedom of free information for everybody. We don’t care about the age, colour, nationality or education of our users and photographers. Books are the best way to bring Information to the people. We want to show how photographers see the world. Photography is the most powerful way to confront humans with all kinds of reality. As intermediaries, we connect the people.”

Check out the website and the books: www.democraticbooks.org/.

Posted by jimcasper at March 2, 2006 02:12 PM