Featuring: what Anna learned from Sylvia Beach and carried into her life; her first taste of creative freedom; having a visual memory; how mistakes are positive; her first book All Messed Up; bringing artists and designers together; creating the publisher Visual Editions and the visually astounding books that were published; writing a love letter to Jonathan Safran Foer; pushing the boundaries of what a book can be; reader out-louders at V&A; storytelling in Ace hotels and live experiences; working with Google Creative Lab; playing with the familiar and not familiar; using technology as a tool to tell stories in a way that’s delightful; meeting audiences where they are already; looking at scent, and working with The Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles.
Anna Gerber is an award-winning Creative Director, working with storytelling, design and technology. For over 20 years, she’s worked with global teams and companies like Google, Penguin, Mercedes and WeTransfer. Anna co-founded Visual Editions, a publishing house with refreshingly innovative book design and ideas. It won many awards and each book they made joined the permanent collection at The Art Institute of Chicago. Anna also dreamed up Editions at Play with Britt Iversen and Tea Uglow from Google Creative Lab, to tell experimental stories for the mobile phone. They made the first ever blockchain book, and published a ghost story that knows where the user is, and a book using Google Street View to travel the world. They received a Peabody Futures Award, and each Editions At Play story is part of the permanent collection at The British Library. In the pandemic Anna worked on Stories of Splendid Isolationwith voice activated stories for the home, and Anna is currently working with The Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles on making the first ever open access digital scent archive. In all of her work, Anna brings stories into the world in surprising ways, and helps make our digital experiences more thrilling and human. www.annagerber.com