Artifact Uprising Photo Books

In both 2012 and 2013, I took on Project 365 and ended up with a photo for each day of that 2 year period. I highly recommend that you try this for a year (It doesn’t have to be January-December either!) and I loved watching the progression of our lives as I scrolled through the online album where they were stored.  The problem is that I don’t want my memories living inside my hard drive. For one thing, technology can fail and that even with backups, I get unreasonably nervous about some world catastrophe destroying all of my digital images and erasing the documentation of my kids’ childhoods.

Even more so than that reason though, I don’t want to curl up with an iPad and relive our memories. I’m actually kind of old fashioned. I really like prints in my hand and boxes of photos that you discover in the basement or attic when you least expect it. But for the purposes of something like this project, I wanted the photos to live together, in a sturdy book with pages that hold up to little fingers that turn them. After all, these photos collectively tell a story. If I were going to invest as much time as I did in taking them, it seemed fitting that they should make their way into a beautiful book, even if it cost a bit more than the Groupon special of the week.  I’ve ordered a few photobooks before and none have really blown me away. So I did more research and read countless online reviews and looked at pictures of photo books until finally I arrived at using Artifact Uprising. It took me until January of 2014 to order both my 2012 and 2013 book but better late than never!

For 2012, I ordered a paperback book (see below) and it is really a beautiful book. My only concern is that my 4.5 year old likes to go through it all the time and I hold my breath when she does, in fear that she will accidentally rip it or spill something or that her fingers will leave spots on it. I am not by any means a neat freak (anyone who has seen the interior of my car can attest to this) but the book was an investment and I would hate to see it ruined.  So for now anyway, we look at it together when she asks.  To be clear, the pages are high quality, but accidents happen and I just wouldn’t leave this book around for the little ones to abuse.

For 2013, I ordered a hardcover book. It is linen and has a dustjacket and is also beautifully made. For the purposes of keeping it safe from my daughter’s small hands, I will likely put the dust jacket away someplace safe while she is still in the habit of grabbing the book and flipping through it but the book itself is solidly made and I am so impressed with the image quality on each thick page. As a nice bonus, the pages are all recycled paper!

If you look closely at the top right corner of the front of the hardcover book from 2013, you will see a small crease. My book arrived that way and I emailed customer service because it seemed strange that it could have passed quality control with a visible dent/crease. Less than 2 hours later that I received an extremely apologetic and personal email from a staff member there who attributed the dent to shipping and said that she was going to notify Fed Ex. More importantly though, she told me that she had already put a new order in the system for me and was going to expedite it herself!

They already had a happy new customer based on a beautiful product but when you throw in great customer service, I really want to tell people about them.

http://www.artifactuprising.com

And for what it’s worth, I didn’t receive any discounts or deals from them. I just like to spread the word about good companies and after a photo session, I often get asked about where to get prints or photobooks done…..so now you know!