Story Of Books is a journal published by Studio GLUE. It is about an object we love above all else, the book. Our focus is on the making of compelling storytelling and the making of the book.

Story Of Books began life as a Twitter hashtag for our London Design Festival 2011 event, “Whatever is to become of books?”. We organised it under the name “Sojournposse”.

The project’s history

On 17 September 2011 at University College London (UCL), we organised an event that addressed the issue with regards to the future of books as the placeholder of ideas. We invited publishing experts from Samsung, Mag+, Oxford Brookes University / Oxford International Centre for Publishing (OICP), British Library, Blurb Books, Photo Book Club, The Comics Grid, The Ballet Bag and social scientists to give their insights.

Speakers from design, publishing, multimedia and digital anthropology discussed the change in traditional publishing platforms and its effect on the labour landscape. It also addressed the issue of the shift in narrative within design, literature and journalism, from traditional storytelling to digital storytelling, and how this changes the way consumers ‘memorise’ and document information.

Backed by the Department of Anthropology UCL, this event was held in support of the Anthropology programmes MSc Digital Anthropology, MA Material & Visual Culture and MA Culture, Materials & Design – all of which were developed by the Material Culture division to examine group behaviours around artifacts, including digital applications.

Sojournposse Collective

Sojournposse was active from 2006 until 2012. The storytelling collective was the powerhouse behind the Story of Books project. It was involved in three London Design Festival projects in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Our social engagement project began at The London Design Festival 2009, where we hosted an annual seminar, The Inspiration Room, which showcased the latest storytelling technology and talents.

Studio GLUE

Studio GLUE is a global graphic design studio, founded in 2015 as a limited company based in London, UK. It currently operates in Malaysia and APAC, serving clients from UK, US and Asia Pacific. In 2018, Studio GLUE was named Best Creative / Media Start-up at Hammersmith and Fulham Brilliant Business Awards, organised by the southwest London council in the UK.