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Ways of Being: a beautifully designed collection of tips for aspiring artists

Ever wanted to sit down with your favourite artist and quiz them about their life and career? With Ways of Being: Advice for Artists by Artists, you can do just that.

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Bright blue book cover with white bold typography reading "WAYS OF BEING", designed by Bibliothèque with die-cut thumb tabs along the spine

Written by journalist and critic James Cahill, this beautifully designed book features interviews, archive material and quotes from the likes of Gilbert & George, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Rauschenberg, Grayson Perry and Jeff Koons, organised into topics such as getting a first studio, finding a gallery and securing a place in the history of art.

The result is an eclectic array of creative voices, providing practical and insightful nuggets of information for any aspiring artist. Whether you’re discovering how Jeff Koons found his first day at art school, or what Andy Warhol thought about his first studio, it’s a fascinating read that you’ll find hard to put down.

The compact paperback is a piece of art itself. Designed by Bibliothèque, it resembles an instruction manual and unusually for an art book, doesn’t contain any images. Instead it is typographically lead, set in Unica77, with the cover and feature pages set in slanted Banco, and uses bespoke infographics that chart facts about the featured artists. It is printed in two Pantone colours, 430 U Grey and 286 U Blue, with each of the book’s five chapters featuring two die-cut thumb tabs, traditionally used for dictionaries.

Ways of Being: Advice for Artists by Artists is available via Laurence King.

Blue book cover with white text reading "Ways of Being" and smaller text stating "Advice for Artists" and "by Artists
Cover of Ways of Being showing a grid layout of white and grey squares and circles containing artist names and topics, with die-cut thumb tabs along the spine
Open spread of Ways of Being showing the grey cover with white typography and a text page with blue die-cut thumb tabs on the right edge
Open spread from Ways of Being showing a white bar chart infographic of an artist's exhibition history against a bright blue background, with grey metal binding visible on the spine
Open spread from Ways of Being showing blue infographic charts with vertical bar graphs displaying data about featured artists
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