Tom Booth Woodger

Tom is a designer, publisher & photographer based in London, UK. Book design is his primary focus and is founded upon the belief that making a book is both collaboration and response. Working together with artists to make a publication relies upon exhausting all possibilities in order to arrive at the best possible final form for the work to exist in. In 2020 he co-founded Besides Press, a photobook publishing company which celebrates projects created with an impulsive curiosity, without deliberation and often without an audience in mind. This includes spontaneous side-projects, playful collaborations, and offbeat experiments. Since 2022 he has also been running Bluecoat Press, which is a London-based publisher that specialises in making photo-books. At Bluecoat, Tom hopes to maintain the respect that has been garnered over the past 30 years but also push the books into a contemporary space. Moving forward Bluecoat Press is striving to be a positive force in the publishing industry, creating beautiful books to represent the voices of many different artists. Reaching beyond the arts and photography into the lives of people who cannot normally access books is something Bluecoat is aiming for as they grow. Creating more accessibility to art is key to growing its uptake and involvement by future generations. A passion which Tom also brings into his personal design and publishing efforts. His photographic work is borne out of intuition and instinct as well as an acute appreciation for the physical world. With imagery focusing on the potential of the unnoticed and what we choose to ignore, either unconsciously or willingly. He explores this through series of images, which often focus on a single person, place or moment in time.