A Collection A Day

With the entire project available virtually on Congdon’s blog, Designer and Publisher Vangool wanted to turn the book into an ultra-tactile physical object. She explains, “I can recall my grandmother's collection of loose buttons and how marvelous they sounded rattling around in a tin.” At 448 pages, the small, brick-like book fits perfectly into its own tin, which both Vangool and Congdon hope readers will use to house their own treasured finds.Image courtesy Lisa Congdon / UPPERCASE

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“I didn’t actually set out to make a book” Congdon explains, “It just started off like—‘what am I really passionate about and what can I show images of everyday that would feel inspiring to me and maybe to other people?’” After brainstorming a ton of ideas, the idea of arranging her huge collection of fun little things into like objects excited Congdon the most.Image courtesy Lisa Congdon / UPPERCASE

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Vintage inspired? Definitely. Not in pristine condition? All the better. Congdon shares, “I love things that are worn or weathered in some way. Or torn. I just love old typography and old packaging. So that’s the inspiration for a lot of the stuff.”Image courtesy Lisa Congdon / UPPERCASE

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Congdon’s first job out of college was teaching at a very old elementary school. In the back of the classroom sat a huge pile of completely out-of-date school supplies from the 1930s-1970s. When the principal told her to just, “put them in the dumpster,” Congdon the collector kept a few of those awesome timeworn finds for herself. She adds, “It’s definitely one of my favorite collections. It’s sentimental because it was one of my first, but also because I find that stuff really cool.”Image courtesy Lisa Congdon / UPPERCASE

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When things started to get a bit tedious (especially six months into the “every single day” project), Congdon stayed motivated knowing that folks were really paying attention to her blog and hungry to see more. “I’m not a fool—there are so many projects on the internet and only a few of them really catch on like this. I knew that mine might be one of them…but I knew it very well might not. I sometimes wonder if so many people hadn’t been interested in it, would I have continued? Would I have finished?”Image courtesy Lisa Congdon / UPPERCASE

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“The owls are actually my mothers collection that were handed down to me,” Congdon explains. “My mom is also a collector—I definitely got the bug from her. A lot of my collections are things people gave me. So a lot of it has sentimental value.”Image courtesy Lisa Congdon / UPPERCASE

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In fact, Congdon owns more than three quarters of the objects in the book. But she admits, “Some of it I ended up buying in the last couple months because I wanted to keep the imagery really interesting. I don’t feel like I was cheating though”, she laughs.Image courtesy Lisa Congdon / UPPERCASE

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Although the majority of the book Congdon beautifully photographed herself, she’s an illustrator by profession. Thus, she decided to create 50 “imagined collections.” She adds, “I thought ‘why not put a few of my illustrations in and then I can have fun thinking about things I would love to collect if I could.’”Image courtesy Lisa Congdon / UPPERCASE

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