All MENDO-made books
Made and published by us
We don't just sell books... we make them too, which you can see in the showcase of our 33 MENDO-made books. Here’s the story of how our MENDO publishing house came to be.
At MENDO, we’ve always been designers. The idea to start a bookstore was conceived when founders Roy and Joost still ran a design communication agency, and was led by their affinity for images, for beautiful books and the love for paper.
In seventeen years time, the Berenstraat flagship store has become a household name. And it was in that store that customers, who were asking for particular books, planted the seeds for what would lead MENDO to become an international publishing house that creates and curates books. As our general manager Roy Rietstap says: ‘We’d like to share our insatiable hunger for visual inspiration and aesthetics’.
Like the origin story of the store, our publishing house started with our home town. Amsterdam was born from our interminable love for the always developing city of Amsterdam, and it wouldn’t be the only publication about our the Dutch capital that we would make. ‘It’s great to showcase the city’s beauty – it’s an endless inspiration to us,’ Roy says.
It’s the inspiring spirit that can be conveyed through all of our Amsterdam books. Books like Amsterdam, The Amsterdam Canals and the uniquely designed Pontsteiger focus on inspiring (parts of) the city, other MENDO-made books focus on the city’s ever-developing creative sector. The Workshop, for instance, offers a unique glimpse in the creative spaces of Dutch artists, and the recently published MOAM collects Amsterdams creativity by featuring contemporary Dutch creatives.
‘ We’d like to share our insatiable hunger for visual inspiration and aesthetics. ’
‘ We’d like to share our insatiable hunger for visual inspiration and aesthetics. ’
Another Amsterdam-focused book, Starring Amsterdam, boasts photos of visiting, groovy celebrities in the 1960s and 70s. The publication contains search suggestions to find out more about the portrayed artists online, connecting the online with the offline world of print. Roy: ‘we’d like show people from generations that grew up with only books, what the new generation of online photographers is creating’. That connection is also essential for books from the ‘Streets Of’ Collection and Depart, which let that new class of photographers leap from online photography to the offline world of print, providing them a tangible chapter in their legacy.
‘We’d like to offer social media photographers an offline platform,’ Roy says, ‘to show others that photography is changing without losing quality’. In that sense, #SENDNUDES also responded to the zeitgeist, featuring online photographers who captured female ‘nudes’ in a new and unconventional manner. ‘Just as unconventional is Ferry van der Nat’s Mr, that can be seen as a contribution to gay emancipation. We wanted to make an alluring book that boasts male nudity, which is interesting for both men and women’.
Van der Nat is just one of the many photographers we teamed up with to create lasting monographs. The first international success came with High Tide, created with the surf photographer Chris Burkard, but also Oscar Abolafia’s Icons by Oscar, Klaas Jan van der Weij’s Sportret, Adam Katz Sinding’s This is Not a F*cking Street Style Book and the MENDO-initiated Carli Hermès monograph are good examples of extraordinary overview books.
In the gradual process of setting up the full-on publishing company MENDO came to be, some of the MENDO men worked more and more from our Herengracht office. Here, our love for paper, ink and color will also in the future be the incentive to create even more books. In July, for instance, the first monograph publication of talented photographer Pie Aerts will be published, which will collect the worldly photos he has shot on his journey looking for real stories about real people. One month earlier, another travel book will see the light, which is the sequel to This Is Not A F*cking Street Style Book by Adam Katz Sinding who documents the zeitgeist of places all over the globe.
You can browse all MENDO-created books here.
All MENDO-made books in figures
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Picturing the Streets of New York
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‘Streets of New York’, editor Joost Bastmeijer introduces five of the book’s contributing photographers.
A brief history about (the streets of) Amsterdam
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The streets of Amsterdam are full of history, that even hardcore Amsterdammers might not know about. Let us tell you a small tale about the past of our beloved home…
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“I love it when people tell me I can’t do something”
Interview with MOAM's Martijn Nekoui
As the biggest platform in the Netherlands for talent in fashion and beyond, MOAM has exceeded many expectations and limitations. Now that we’re making a book with them, it’s time…
How we translated the world of Casper Reinders into a book
Made by MENDO
This book is unlike any other. And although there are more publishers saying that, we promise you, there’s absolutely nothing like this. Casper Reinders greatest interiors are collected in our…
Work in progress: the Pontsteiger book
A first glimpse at a new book project with local significance
An eye-catching new building rises along the banks of the IJ-river. MENDO is very proud to design and publish a book about it.
Picturing the Streets of Amsterdam
Meet the photographers of 'Streets of Amsterdam’
‘Streets of Amsterdam’ editor Joost Bastmeijer introduces four of the book’s contributing photographers.
Interview
To celebrate our upcoming book with The Avocado Show, MENDO had a lunch date with its founder Ron Simpson to “peel” the success of the Avocado Show.
Some favorite contributions
For our newest book MOAM and MENDO asked 100 Dutch creatives to show and tell us what fashion in Amsterdam is.
A new chapter: MENDO at De L’Europe Amsterdam
New MENDO store
Mid-March 2020, MENDO will open a store at De L'Europe Amsterdam in the Nieuwe Doelenstraat, offering a whole new design, with a familiar vibe.
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Every season is gift season
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Visual Inspiration #5: Not Safe For Instagram
The best images from books at MENDO
Many books at MENDO contain images that exceed the tantalization that is allowed by Instagram. Luckily the nudity filter on MENDO.nl is somewhat less rigorous. Enjoy this collection of visually…
Selected by MENDO's Daniël Ferwerda
At MENDO, we love to be inspired by everything visual. This time, MENDO's Daniël Ferwerda selected 9 inspiring images from 9 inspiring books.
What the f*ck is street style, according to Virgil Abloh?
Virgil Abloh, Adam Katz Sinding and MENDO on the current state of fashion
In February, MENDO published Adam Katz Sinding’s first monograph This is Not a F*cking Street Style Book. The foreword is a result of an intense conversation between MENDO's editor Mikel…
The vivid, theatrical stories of Alex Prager
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An epic final chapter
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Jack Davison: Understanding Photography
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Jack Davison spends most his time experimenting with photography, which results in a body of work that consists of captivating images. For this Photographer’s Profile, MENDO chats with Davison about…
MENDO opens new store at Hotel De L’Europe
The new MENDO
The word is out: in March, MENDO will open a new store at Hotel De L’Europe in Amsterdam. Here’s how the design, created by our friends from Nicemakers, came to…
Lauren Greenfield visited MENDO to sign Generation Wealth
Signed copies of highly anticipated book
Lauren Greenfield spent 25 years documenting wealth and now her highly anticipated book has been published: Generation Wealth.