Gap is famous for its advertisements featuring portraits of celebrity artists and performers by A-list photographers like Annie Leibovitz, Herb Ritts, and Michel Comte. In 2005, Trey Laird, then the creative director at Gap, came to Melcher Media with the idea to memorialize this collection of iconic images. Gap wanted to celebrate a body of work more than two decades in the making and filled with some of the most memorable images ever created of stars like Sarah Jessica Parker, Scarlett Johansson, Willie Nelson, Ashton Kutcher, and Julianne Moore.

As the project was developing, U2 frontman Bono launched his (PRODUCT)RED brand—the aim of which is to help raise awareness and funds to help eliminate AIDS in Africa—and Gap signed on immediately. Melcher Media’s work with Gap began to take on a new shape, and we shifted focus to begin integrating the book-in-progress with Gap’s (RED) product line. Individuals is a collection of hundreds of beautiful portraits—along with celebrity essays on individuality—that serves as a powerful record of Gap’s impact on the culture of our time. The book was bound with six different cloth covers, all coordinated with the color palette of the (RED) product line, with each edition featuring a different celebrity. The book was packaged with an exclusive CD containing songs used in or produced for Gap television commercials, and it was displayed with (PRODUCT)RED merchandise in sections of Gap stores designed specifically for the book.