Joseph-Gordon-Levitt's Tiny Book of Tiny Stories

When we spoke to Joseph Gordon-Levitt earlier this year about HitRecord, he spoke about his brother Dan as the guiding spirit behind the website the two brothers launched in 2005. They initially saw it as a space to host their own projects and then as a place for anyone and everyone to contribute creatively.

"He was so overwhelmingly positive and warm," Gordon-Levitt explained. "One of my favorite things about hitRECord is how positive it is, especially compared to most of what goes on on the Internet, which can be snarky and cynical. I credit Dan with that. He couldn't help but get swept up in it, and it makes me so happy that the momentum continues today. I'm on the site every day, and the fact there's this warmth to it, it reminds me of him every time."

Known within the HitRECord community as RegularJOE, one of the projects includes art and words, in which Gordon-Levitt directs thousands of collaborators to tell tiny stories through words and art. The third volume of The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories is out, and it's both sweet, edgy, endearing, and strange. We had a chance to look at a copy (available now).

hitRECord is an open collaborative production company where members can contribute their work in various forms including music, videos, text and drawings.

Members are then encouraged to add, edit, remix and collaborate with each other. hitRECord currently has over 250,000 members worldwide, over2,500 creative contributions are added daily, and over 250 new artists join hitRECord each day.

"Tiny Stories is a victory for the enduring power and allure of physical, bound books. Although produced collaboratively and online, the epitome of futurism in book publishing, the slim volume is exceedingly handsome and altogether nostalgic in its design, meant to evoke memories in the reader of a time when all we had were bound books, and the best-made of them were a pleasure both to handle and to see on one's shelf." -- The Millions