The Moment Jars
by Maria PopovaA timecapsule of human existence, or what childbirth and a moose have in common.
We all have those moments — the rare ones so saturated with personal significance and impact, so rich in meaning and relevance that we want to savor them, to save them, to put them in a jar. The Moment Jars offers just that — a lovely record of being human.
The brainchild of four creatives from the advertising and design industries — writer Mark Freid, designers Jeff Matz and Paul Mastriani, and illustrator Kim Foxbury — the project is a digital repository for people’s most monumental moments, offered without context or explanation in their rawest, purest form.
Candid and deeply personal, the moments range from the questionable (shooting a moose) to the mundane yet inexplicably memorable (a foggy day in San Diego) to the expected (lots of babies, lots of first kisses). The latter — an overwhelming majority — strip life of its pretense and illustrate a simple truth: The moments we often dismiss as the most contrived cliches are actually the ones that move us most powerfully and memorably
The Moment Jars is a bittersweet reminder that even the best of moments pass us by, living on only as ephemeral ghosts in the treasure chest of our memory.
The team (of The Wishing Machine fame) is immortalizing the moments in a limited-edition 22-page illustrated book, which you can buy right here.
You can also add your own moment to the chronological archive of several hundred jars, with moments dating as far back as 1920.
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