Faculty Department (Hardcover): A Thoughtful Look Inside Creative Lives

Faculty Department is the kind of hardcover book that makes a coffee table feel wildly underqualified. Created by photographer Justin Chung, this substantial visual volume combines intimate portraits, personal environments, quiet routines, and thoughtful writing to explore how creative people actually livenot merely how they pose when someone points a camera at them.

The first volume was initially released in late 2014 and entered wider retail distribution in early 2015. The English-language hardcover contains 265 pages and carries ISBN 978-0-692-29891-6. Although it fits comfortably within the categories of portrait photography, lifestyle publishing, and design books, its real subject is less tidy: the tiny habits, objects, rooms, relationships, and personal philosophies that help people build meaningful lives.

What Is Faculty Department About?

At its core, Faculty Department is a collection of visual profiles featuring noteworthy individuals from creative fields. Chung photographs his subjects at work, at home, and during ordinary moments that might seem unimportant until they are framed with care. The book is interested in what happens between the dramatic milestones: the desk covered with tools, the chair someone always sits in, the morning ritual, the half-finished project, and perhaps the coffee cup that has become an unofficial member of the household.

Rather than treating success as a neat sequence of achievements, the book examines the environments and routines surrounding creative work. Its featured subjects include Thomas Lehoux, Lauren Snyder, Frank Muytjens, Lorin Stein, Tokuhiko Kise, Philip Crangi, Angus McIntosh, Richard Haines, Filippa Hallstensson, Sam Lambert, Ted Harrington, Kristoffer Dahy Ernst, and celebrated furniture designer Jens Risom.

That range matters. These are not thirteen versions of the same fashionable person standing in thirteen suspiciously spotless lofts. The subjects come from publishing, fashion, design, retail, craft, and other creative disciplines. Their personalities and surroundings vary, giving the book a broader emotional texture than a traditional collection of celebrity portraits.

A Book About Process Rather Than Performance

Justin Chung developed the idea after moving to New York City in 2011 to pursue commercial fashion photography and portraiture. Although he admired what creative professionals produced, he became especially interested in how they worked and how apparently minor details shaped their effectiveness, happiness, and sense of self. That curiosity became the organizing principle of Faculty Department.

This focus separates the book from a conventional portfolio. A portfolio usually says, “Look what the photographer can do.” Faculty Department quietly asks, “What can we understand about this person?” Chung’s technical skill remains visible, but it does not elbow the subjects out of the frame while yelling for applause.

Justin Chung’s Warm, Unforced Photography

The defining quality of Chung’s photography is restraint. His portraits often feel warm, natural, and observational rather than heavily staged. He pays attention to light, posture, clothing, furniture, and architecture, but the images rarely appear overproduced. The goal is not to make every room look like a showroom or every subject resemble a luxury campaign.

That naturalism has become strongly associated with Chung’s broader work. Profiles of the photographer frequently describe his images as intimate and unvarnished, while design presentations of his portfolio emphasize authenticity and a desire to keep the visual experience as natural as possible.

Environmental Portraits That Reveal Character

Environmental portraiture can go wrong in two directions. The surroundings may become so busy that the subject disappears, or the photographer may sterilize the space until it reveals almost nothing. Chung generally avoids both traps. The people remain central, yet their objects and rooms provide context.

A shelf, jacket, lamp, notebook, tool, or stack of reading material may offer as much information as a formal biography. These details suggest preferences and priorities without requiring the subject to announce them. The photographs reward slow observation because their meaning accumulates rather than arriving with a flashing sign and a tiny marching band.

One profile, for example, follows Lorin Stein in the book-lined offices of The Paris Review. The published excerpt connects Stein’s lifelong desire to read with the challenge of protecting his attention from administrative demands, email, text messages, and other interruptions. The portrait becomes more than a picture of an editor; it becomes a meditation on concentration.

Photography and Writing Work Together

Faculty Department is not simply a photo album with names printed beneath the pictures. Original texts accompany the subjects, adding biography, conversation, observation, and interpretation. The credited contributors include Sean Hotchkiss, Kevin Burrows, Lucy Brook, and Chris Wallace alongside Justin Chung.

The combination of words and photographs gives the profiles room to breathe. Images can show the atmosphere of a workshop or apartment, while the writing can explain a decision, memory, professional philosophy, or personal contradiction. Neither medium is forced to perform every task.

This balance is crucial because creative work is difficult to explain through images alone. A portrait may communicate confidence, concentration, or fatigue, but it cannot always reveal why someone chose a particular career or how that person defines a meaningful day. The essays add intellectual and emotional context without turning the book into a textbook wearing an expensive jacket.

The Hardcover as a Designed Object

The physical production of Faculty Department is a major part of its identity. Designed by the Vancouver-based studio Faculty, the hardcover was conceived as an object to be handled, displayed, revisited, and lived with. Studio Faculty later described the inaugural book as an important early project that allowed the young design studio to present its work internationally.

That context helps explain why the publication feels more intentional than a collection of photographs placed between two hard covers. Typography, page rhythm, image sequencing, margins, and transitions all influence the reading experience. Good editorial design is a little like excellent restaurant service: it guides the entire evening without repeatedly introducing itself.

Why the Hardcover Format Matters

Digital galleries are convenient, fast, and wonderfully unlikely to crush your toes when dropped. Still, a hardcover photography book offers advantages that a screen cannot fully reproduce.

Page size gives images physical presence. Paper introduces texture. A sequence of spreads controls pacing. Closing the book creates a natural pause, while reopening it weeks later may reveal details missed during the first viewing. The hardcover format also encourages shared browsing; two people can sit together and discuss an image without receiving notifications about discount sneakers halfway through the conversation.

The material format suits Chung’s subject because the book celebrates attention. It asks readers to notice small details in other people’s lives, and its physical construction encourages the slower behavior necessary to notice them.

Major Themes in Faculty Department

1. Creativity Is Built From Ordinary Habits

One of the book’s strongest ideas is that meaningful work rarely emerges from inspiration alone. It grows out of repeated actions, maintained spaces, personal standards, and routines that may look boring from the outside.

The glamorous result might be a finished collection, beautifully designed room, published essay, or handcrafted object. Behind it sits a less cinematic reality: returning to the studio, answering difficult questions, correcting mistakes, and doing something again because the first attempt had all the grace of a shopping cart with one broken wheel.

2. Personal Spaces Function as Self-Portraits

The interiors in Faculty Department are not included merely as decoration. They reveal how people organize their attention and express their values. A workspace can show whether someone prefers abundance or simplicity, privacy or collaboration, strict order or productive chaos.

These spaces also challenge the idea that style must be purchased as a complete package. The most memorable rooms often feel accumulated rather than installed. Furniture, books, clothing, artwork, and tools gain meaning through use. The result is personal style with evidence of an actual persona surprisingly rare decorating strategy.

3. Simplicity Can Be Rich Without Being Empty

Chung’s minimal photographic approach does not promote emptiness for its own sake. Instead, it helps the reader recognize what matters within each scene. Simplicity becomes a method of selection: removing visual noise so gestures, expressions, and significant objects can carry more weight.

This philosophy continued to shape the larger Faculty Department project. Later interviews and subsequent volumes described the series in terms of purposeful living, meaningful routines, and appreciation for subtle elements of everyday life.

How Volume One Influenced the Faculty Department Project

The first hardcover did not remain an isolated publication. Its release was accompanied by an intimate New York gathering documented by VSCO, while outlets such as Hypebeast highlighted the project’s close look at noteworthy individuals. The positive response helped establish Faculty Department as an ongoing editorial platform rather than a one-time photography experiment.

In 2019, Chung expanded the concept with Faculty Department Volume 2. The later hardcover featured 23 stories, hundreds of photographs, Smyth-sewn binding, and printing in Italy. Its subjects came from a broad international creative community, reinforcing the project’s interest in purposeful living across professions and locations.

Faculty Department also moved into collaborations. A later project with fragrance company Le Labo documented twelve individuals across California who had deliberately created lives around their own values and craft. These extensions demonstrate how flexible the original idea was: observe people carefully, enter their spaces respectfully, and let the ordinary details explain the larger story.

Who Will Enjoy Faculty Department?

The hardcover is particularly well suited to photographers, designers, writers, architects, editors, stylists, makers, and readers interested in creative culture. Portrait photographers can study Chung’s use of natural-looking light and environmental detail. Art directors can examine the relationship between image selection and page design. Writers can observe how concise narrative material expands the meaning of a visual profile.

It also works for people who simply enjoy seeing how thoughtful individuals arrange their lives. You do not need to identify the manufacturer of every chair or own twelve nearly identical black turtlenecks. Curiosity is the main admission requirement.

However, shoppers seeking a technical photography manual should look elsewhere. The book does not primarily teach camera settings, lighting diagrams, or editing workflows. Its lessons are indirect. Readers learn through observation, mood, sequencing, and the behavior of the people being photographed.

Availability and Collectible Appeal

The original volume has become increasingly difficult to obtain. Chung has referred to the first book as sold out, and the official Faculty Department website identifies Volume One profiles as belonging to the sold-out edition. Copies now tend to appear through used-book dealers and secondary marketplaces rather than ordinary retail inventory.

Scarcity naturally increases collector interest, especially when a book combines respected creative subjects, strong production, limited availability, and relevance to contemporary design culture. Still, an ambitious resale listing is not the same thing as a confirmed market value. A seller may ask for the moon, two satellites, and free shipping; that does not guarantee a buyer will agree.

Before purchasing a used copy, examine the condition of the boards, spine, corners, page block, and printed surfaces. Ask whether the book has odors, moisture damage, writing, detached pages, or fading. For an image-driven publication, clean pages are more important than a flawless dust jacketalthough collectors may understandably want both.

The Experience of Reading and Living With the Hardcover

The most satisfying way to approach Faculty Department is not to race through all 265 pages in a single sitting. It works better as a book of repeated visits. Read one profile, study the photographs, close the cover, and allow the subject’s environment to remain in your mind. This rhythm respects the publication’s interest in small observations.

During an initial browse, the portraits usually create the strongest impression. Faces, clothing, rooms, and light establish an immediate atmosphere. On a second visit, less obvious details begin to take control: the wear on an object, the arrangement of books, the distance between a person and the camera, or the way a workspace accommodates both discipline and disorder.

A designer may respond most strongly to the page layouts. A photographer may examine framing and available light. A writer may pause over a sentence explaining a subject’s working philosophy. Someone exhausted by aggressively optimized online content may simply enjoy encountering a publication that does not demand a click, subscription, reaction, password reset, or acceptance of seventeen categories of cookies.

The book also changes the way readers may view their own environments. After spending time with these profiles, an ordinary desk can appear less ordinary. The objects surrounding daily work start to resemble a record of decisions. Which tools are always nearby? Which books remain within reach? What has been repaired rather than replaced? What items support concentration, and what items merely occupy valuable territory like tiny decorative landlords?

This reflective effect may be the book’s most useful experience. It does not present a universal formula for creativity. It shows many individual arrangements and allows readers to recognize that a meaningful life can be constructed in different ways. One subject may depend on careful organization, while another thrives among visible materials and unfinished experiments. The lesson is not to copy a room. It is to understand why the room works for the person inside it.

As a display object, the hardcover naturally belongs on a coffee table, studio shelf, or reading-room cabinet. Yet leaving it untouched would miss the point. The sturdy format is an invitation to handle it. Corners may eventually soften, favorite spreads may open more easily, and certain profiles may become familiar. That gradual wear can add character, provided the book is being enjoyed rather than used as an emergency coaster for a sweating glass of iced coffee.

The experience can also be social. Browsing the book with another person often produces conversations about workspaces, career choices, personal style, and the relationship between possessions and identity. One reader may admire the architecture, while another notices the subject’s posture or tools. Because the photographs remain visually open, different viewers can enter the same profile from different directions.

For working creatives, Faculty Department may serve as a quiet reset during periods of frustration. It does not shout motivational slogans or promise that waking at 4:17 a.m. will transform anyone into a visionary billionaire. Instead, it offers evidence that serious creative lives are made from patience, attention, routine, and personal choices accumulated over time.

That modest message gives the book unusual durability. Trends in clothing, interiors, and publishing may shift, but curiosity about how people make meaningful work remains relevant. The hardcover ultimately feels less like a catalog of impressive individuals and more like an invitation to examine the structure of one’s own days.

Final Verdict

Faculty Department (Hardcover) is a carefully produced portrait of creative life built from photography, writing, editorial design, and close observation. Justin Chung’s restrained images allow people and spaces to retain their individuality, while the accompanying texts provide context that photographs alone cannot supply.

Its greatest strength is its refusal to reduce creativity to glamour. The book celebrates routine, environment, concentration, craft, and the meaningful little things that usually disappear from conventional success stories. For readers interested in visual storytelling, portrait photography, thoughtful interiors, or creative process, Volume One remains a compelling and increasingly collectible publication.

Note: This is an independent editorial review based on publisher records, library catalogs, creator interviews, design-studio documentation, and established bookselling sources. Stock, condition, and secondary-market prices may change over time.