The Art of the Photo Book with Yolanda Cuomo

Workshop with Yolanda Cuomo

When: from 14th to 18th  June 2023

Where: Officine Fotografiche Roma – via Libetta, 1

Participation fee: 800€

Early Bird Promo: 600€ for registrations by April, 21st 2023 

This five-day class is broken up into two sections. The first part is a four-day intensive workshop where students will be designing their own projects.

Each student must come in with 4×6 work prints (laser or cheaply made prints) of a wide edit (50-100 images) from a single completed body of work that they want to make into a book form. In this intensive workshop, presentations and hands-on sessions will guide students through the processes of editing, pairing and pagination, designing, typesetting, and format.

The course will focus on the areas leading up to and including the actual production and printing of a book. Other topics include demonstrations of best practices in Adobe InDesign.

The class will also explore type design, students are encouraged to write about their projects and create captions. The students will leave this class with a complete mock up/dummy of their book. Lectures throughout the class will include: The Book as Object, Collage, The Editing Process, Making Type Beautiful, Invention and Deadlines, and Books are Not Silent. 

On the final day, in a joint effort with Matt Black’s Interpretive Documentary Photography participants will learn the process and nature of the publishing field. With images culled from Matt’s students, we will create an improvised journal that utilizes the design skills the student’s have developed. Students will edit, design, and produce photo portfolios for an improvised journal that each student will receive a copy of.

Along with 50-100 work prints each student should bring a laptop equipped with InDesign, Photoshop and Bridge.

BOTH WORKSHOPS: 

Participants of each workshop will work separately; on the first day, the workshops will merge for a lecture and discussion of how Cuomo and Black have worked together, collaborating to create fully-realized projects.  On the last day, the two workshops will join together again to produce a group project exploring a common theme from the streets of Rome, resulting in a journal publication that every participant will receive a copy of.

Please contact didattica@officinefotografiche.org with any questions.

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WORKSHOP FORMAT: THE ART OF THE PHOTOBOOK

Day 1:

AM –  10:00 AM – 12:00 PM 

• Get to know your project 
• Intro to InDesign

Lunch break 12:00 – 1:00 PM

PM –  1:00 – 4:00 PM

• Lecture: The Book as an Object
• Begin editing process

PM – 4:00 – 6:00 PM 

• Joint Lecture:  Yo and Matt show work they’ve done together and books they like to full group

Day 2: 

AM –  10:00 AM – 12:00 PM 

• Lecture: The Editing Process
• Continue editing
• Discuss formats and go to library

Lunch break 12:00 – 1:00 PM

PM –  1:00 – 6:00 PM

• Lecture: Collage
• Begin sequencing 
• Bring work into InDesign

Day 3:

AM –  10:00 AM – 12:00 PM 

• Lecture: Invention and Deadlines
• Print and clip image edit 
• Flip and resequence 

Lunch break 12:00 – 1:00 PM

PM –  1:00 – 6:00 PM

• Lecture: Making Type Beautiful
• Work on type treatments
• Refine image edit to final 

Day 4:

AM –  10:00 AM – 12:00 PM 

• Book binding demo
• Print and trim final dummy

Lunch break 12:00 – 1:00 PM

PM –  1:00 – 6:00 PM

• Lecture: Books are Not Silent
• Bind final dummy 

Day 5:

All Day 

AM –  10:00 AM – 12:00 PM 

• Everyone meets and produces The Journal using images from Matt’s class
  • work partners assigned
  • partner chat
  • put work into InDesign (6-10 pages)
  • finalize photo portfolios

Lunch break 12:00 – 1:00 PM

PM –  1:00 – 6:00 PM 

• Journal production:  
  • print thumbnails
  • pool pages
  • edit on wall/table
  • print and bind one journal to be distributed at the end of the day

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BIO:

Yolanda Cuomo is an experienced art director and avid educator.  As Principal of Yolanda Cuomo Design, she provides the creative vision, direction, and passion behind all of the Studio’s projects. Some of Cuomo’s recent projects include Diane Arbus, Documents; Matt Black, American Geography; Gilles Peress,Whatever You Say, Say Nothing; Paolo Pellegrin, by Germano Celant; Susan Meiselas, Tar Beach;  and Pete Souza OBAMA, An Intimate Portrait.

In 2013, she was profiled by The New Yorker in a film called “Let’s Make a Book About This.” She was also featured on Time Magazine’s LightBox in “Profile of a Curatorial Master: Yolanda Cuomo.” She has received honors from the National Magazine Award, the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), the ICP Infinity Award in 1995 and 2004. Cuomo’s work has also been recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), Society of Publication Designers (SPD), and the Art Directors Club.

She currently teaches at New York University. She lives and works in Weehawken, New Jersey, with her husband Joe. She has two sons, Gianni, an actor/filmmaker, and Luca, an architect. Cuomo has a BFA from Cooper Union.