The invitation to take part.
The book is made of the team, by the team. The call is how the team is asked in: one photo or a short video, a few of your own words, and you take your place in the team the book is made from.
The invitation (draft)
There is one team that includes all the others. The human team. This book is its portrait, and it is missing you. Send a photo of yourself, or a short video, and a few of your own true words. Not a performance, not your best angle, just you, as you are, taking part.
What to send
- One photograph of yourself. A real one. However you want to be seen.
- Or a short video. A few seconds, vertical or horizontal, however your phone holds it. These feed the video campaigns as well as the book.
- A few of your own words, in your own voice. What you keep, what you carry, what you would say to whoever comes next. A line is enough.
- Your name and where you are. As much or as little as you want shown.
Words are optional, and a picture can be met with words later. Not every submission is printed. The book is a selection, chosen for the images that make you feel the whole team at once. Some pages hold a face and a line; some hold only a face; some hold only a line. The team makes this book together.
The spirit of it (tone lines, illustrative)
Materials this becomes
- The submission page on everyone.team, and the web app itself, where the photo, video, and words come in.
- The invitation as it runs across EVERYONE's own channels: its Instagram and Facebook, and the site and app, in short and long form, to share by post, by message, and in person.
- The prompt itself, treated as an instrument and not a form: narrow, a little loaded, the kind of ask that draws a true thing out of an ordinary day. We are still shaping it.
Handled with care, at the source.
The oldest problem with a book made by many is clearing the rights. We handle it the moment a picture arrives, plainly, so no one is ever surprised by what they agreed to.
In plain language
What you keep. Your image is yours. Your words are yours. Your name is yours. Taking part does not sign any of that away.
What you grant. Permission to include your photo and words in The Human Team and in the wider EVERYONE work that carries the same team, to print, display, and share them as part of the book and its story, with credit.
What you confirm. That it is you, or that you have the right to submit it; that you are of age, or that a parent or guardian is submitting for a child; and that you are choosing this freely.
What comes back. Credit as one of the people who made the book, and a share of the value the work creates, held for you and paid through your own account (see the platform, next).
How to step back. You can ask to be left out of future volumes, and to have your submission removed, at any time before it goes to print.
The clauses to be papered
- License scope and term, print and digital, this work and the related EVERYONE works.
- Credit and moral rights; how a name or place can be withheld on request.
- Minors: guardian consent and extra care.
- Removal and revocation, and its limits once printed.
- Data and privacy: what is stored, and the promise not to sell it.
- The value share: how a contributor's portion of the creators' pool is defined and paid.
One system does three jobs.
everyone.team is where the team gathers, and it is where the book is made. The same platform takes the submissions, holds the rights, and keeps the record of what each person is owed.
1 · It takes the submissions.
A contributor adds a photo and a few words through the platform. Consent and credit are captured in the same motion, so the picture and its permission arrive together, never after the fact. A first look at that tool is in the app now. It shows how the flow will work and deliberately stores nothing yet, because collecting a rights grant into something that does not keep it would be worse than waiting.
2 · It tracks the rights.
Each submission is tied to a real person, with the agreement they made, kept on record. That is the provenance that makes this a book of real, named, consenting people, and not a set of images pulled from nowhere.
3 · It keeps the value ledger.
A defined share of the value the book creates goes to the people who made it, the creators' share, currently framed as 20% of profit to the people who created the book. The platform tracks each contributor's slice of that pool and what they are owed, credited when their image is selected, printed, or used. The value is held in the member's own account and designed to be paid out anywhere in the world, in small amounts, simply.
Note: the same submission engine is designed to feed more than the book over time. That wider scope is held separately and shared when it is ready.
Everyone sends it in. A few shape it into a book.
Once submissions are in, the book is made the way any great art book is made, with a few hands and a clear eye.
Matching images and words
Not every picture arrives with words, and not every picture needs them. Images and words are gathered from the team and brought together, a face here, a line there, sometimes from the same person, sometimes matched. Every voice stays in its own words, lightly shaped, never overwritten.
Selecting and sequencing
It is not everything, and that is the point. Creative direction holds the whole, deciding what belongs beside what, and what to leave out, so a book made by a great many people still reads as one. Most of what is sent will never appear; the book is made as much of that restraint as of the faces it keeps. Each Volume is a selection, not everyone at once, and because it is a series, more of the team reaches the page over time.
The through-line
Authored by everyone, held by a few. That balance, open at the door, exacting at the edit, is what lets the book be both a true portrait of the team and an object worth keeping.
An object worth keeping. Down to the spine.
Built to sit out, not shelve away, in the tradition of the great art books that hold their place on a shelf for a lifetime. The mark rides the spine, so a book bought by the dozen to give away carries the team, spine-out, on shelves around the world.
From a first look to a finished object.
- Now · The first look. The aspirational page is live and shared by invitation; this dossier opens the room behind it.
- Next · Open the call. The submission page and agreement go live to a first circle, and the first faces come in.
- Then · Gather & edit. Enough of the team takes part to compose Volume I; a few hands select, match, and sequence.
- Then · Produce. The object is made to spec with an art-book printer.
- Then · Release. Volume I into the world, and the series continues.
The seats that are open.
Contribute
Add your face and your words. This is the act that makes the book, and it is open to anyone.
Co-create
Shape the first volume with your eye and your input, credited as a founding co-creator. Some hands hold the book. These could be some of them.
Creative direction
A book like this is held by a point of view: the taste that decides what belongs, what to set beside what, and what to leave out. That direction is being shaped now, and it is the seat that matters most.
Publish & back it
When the time comes, a publishing home worthy of the object, and the backers who help bring Volume I into the world. A full plan and financial model are being prepared for this conversation.