As retail continues to (d)evolve into the digital universe of transaction and delivery, there remains fewer and fewer opportunities, particularly in cities like London, to develop a grass roots in-person business. Record 28 books, which emerged during the period that shalt not be named, began online and has made the transition from digital to physical in East London’s Whitecross street. 

While the space was temporary, have no doubt that Record 28 will return to a physical space, stocking rare and interesting books spanning photography, design, furniture and fine art. 

"I hadn’t studied art and the general accessibility to great art or resources to learn in Hull, where I’m from, weren’t so good. I started to buy books from all different disciplines as a way of educating myself because I couldn’t really afford to go back to university, but I loved the arts and I loved the history and I felt that I could take that information in much more easily than anything else. That feeling when you genuinely connect with something and gain a lot of knowledge is special; it’s baffling to others that you could look at a photo or a piece of work and recognise it."

"Record 28 came to exist on the back end of a series of personal projects I started after moving to London. The first of these was a menswear blog, which at the time there weren’t many of and even though it wasn’t exceptionally successful, it gave me an outlet to have creative autonomy. London can be frustrating at times, not having a lot of control, not having a lot of money and having something that you’ve built yourself regardless of the scale, can be a useful tool for maintaining sanity. That total control over at least one thing in your life while swimming in deadlines at work gives you a grip on your own micro-destiny; it doesn’t feel like ‘work’."

"So I had been buying a lot of books, just flicking through them, enjoying them and my girlfriend told me that the floor in our house is going to collapse through if you keep buying more books [laughs]. They were stacked up everywhere, falling out of cupboards and I then decided this could be my new outlet. By photographing the books, researching and writing about them made the knowledge stick with me. I began listing these books online for sale as a way of showing my girlfriend that they weren’t all going to be here permanently, and some of them started to sell which I wasn’t completely over the moon about, if I’m being honest."

"I’m a little bit of a hoarder slash scavenger, I really enjoy the hunt with these kinds of things. I like finding something that you can’t quite put your finger on why it connects with you. They could be projects which have been released 20 years ago and then someone connects with it, a buyer a seller and it filters out and the project can become quite important, or more relevant. Projects like Ray’s a Laugh by Richard Billingham, it was important when it came out but people seem to revisit these kinds of topics when we have government unrest or parallel issues at any given time." 

"I always like to try and ‘discover’ a book, and then show that discovery to people who are into books as something that they may not know about. Stocking all of the key photographers and all the key projects, I don’t want to go after that kind of thing all the time because it strips out some of the enjoyment. As something that started on Instagram, shortly after Protein studios approached me to do a curated selection of books at a space they had, and seeing how people connected with these things in person was really special." 

“I lost my job through covid, and I had started volunteering at Oxfam; which a few people thought I was doing just to try and get books [laughs]. The urgency to put more effort in, to start generating income as a business really moved things along, and when you put energy into something, you get that same energy back. As it started to gain traction, I got an opportunity to open a temporary physical space in East London which gave people the opportunity to browse the collection. It felt great because we made an unthreatening space that people could hang out and look at great work in an anti-elitist place.”

"We never wanted to over elevate the prices, we wanted them to be accessible to all sorts of people, and it’s very difficult to find these kinds of books in a physical space. Prices in rare bookshops can often be very high, partially a result of high rent and the costs of having a physical space, but I really loved the idea of buying things at a reasonable price and allowing someone else the opportunity to buy it reasonably. I think that the UK high street needs some help, but it shouldn’t be on the consumers to pay over the odds for something because of those costs."

"The customer can’t feel like they’ve been fleeced out of money, you want a customer to get something they want at a nice price and return as a customer, or attend a launch or a party. I enjoy talking to people in the shop too, it’s a nice experience because people don’t tend to shop for art books when they’re angry. There will be times that I’ll put a book on the shelf and it will be gone within minutes and I think, “hmm maybe I could have asked for a little bit more [laughs].”

"Whitecross street is one of London’s oldest markets, it has a lot of history; it’s a protected market street. The retail along that street, if they clash with the market sellers, they won’t allow it. The bookshop really fit the identity of the area, selling second hand books in a trader-like way made sense. It was always a temporary space, and I had pushed and pushed for longer and longer but it was destined to become another co-working space, which is a shame given its history. We’ll be back with a physical space in the future."

Portraits shot on LEICA R8 / Leitz 50mm / 35mm f2 Summicron by Jonnie Craig

To visit the online store of Record28, please click here.