MILK Books

MILK Books is an online photo book service headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, which allows customers to create and print custom photo books using its online design software.
History
MILK stands for ‘Moments of Inspiration, Love and Kinship’, a name derived from a photography project of founder Geoff Blackwell. Blackwell became notable in publishing for the M.I.L.K. collections - a series of photo books portraying moments of humanity.
The original M.I.L.K collection began in 1999. M.I.L.K. was a global photography competition, which gathered over 40,000 professional and amateur images. From these, 300 images were selected to be the heart of an exhibition. This exhibition featured in the Grand Central Terminal, New York City, in 2001, and proceeded to make its way across the world to London, Sydney, and finally Auckland by 2002. The photographs chosen for The M.I.L.K. Collection were subsequently divided into three titles; ‘Family’, ‘Friendship’ and ‘Love’, and were published by Blackwell's publishing company, Blackwell & Ruth.
M.I.L.K. was a global success, selling 3 million books and 74 million greeting cards featuring the winning images.  
The economic and critical success of this photo book series was pivotal in inspiring Blackwell to found the e-commerce business MILK Books several years later in 2012, with the idea that people around the world could create their own M.I.L.K. moments. The name 'M.I.L.K.' became stylistically abbreviated to 'MILK' with the photo book business's founding in 2012.
Products
MILK products include photo books, photo albums, gallery frames, canvas prints and art prints.
MILK claims all papers used are FSC certified and acid-free.
A range of materials are used for MILK product cover fabrics, notably including Vegan Leathers which are stated to be phthalate-free and REACH compliant, and furthermore dyed Leather materials, which are described to originate from Milan.
MILK Photo Books use a mix of traditional and modern bookbinding techniques, including PUR binding or section-sewn binding, and MILK Photo Albums are crafted using the lay-flat flush mount binding technique.
Notability
The women's beauty magazine Cosmopolitan dubs the product a 'Modern Classic'. In February 2022, American women's magazine, Good Housekeeping, named MILK's 'Leather Photo Album' the 'best luxury wedding album'. Other brands such as Brides give similar praise for MILK's wedding products.
The New York Magazine dubs MILK's partnership with Moleskine a 'delight'.
Partnerships
Moleskine
As of 2012, MILK Books has held a partnership with Italian notebooks manufacturer, Moleskine, which allows users to create photo books printed in Moleskine products, using their own photos.
Apple
In 2019, MILK Books created an extension for the Photos application on macOS. This extension allows users to create and print MILK products.
 
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