A CATALOG OF BANK IMAGERY

A new way to immerse oneself in the study of banking.

Dear subscribers,

I’m thrilled to share with you something that has been in the works for a year.

It’s a catalog of banking-inspired imagery — you can download a PDF version by clicking here.

You’ll find four series of images in the catalog, all inspired by the goal to help demystify banking, infuse knowledge into bankers and by doing so improve the performances of their institutions.

The first series is titled “Everything Is Fine Until It Isn’t.” Its purpose is to illustrate the fragility of banking — how quickly things can go from outstanding to out of control. These are stark, black and white images, meant to focus one’s attention on the familiar shape possessed by them all.

The second series — “Failure Analogs” — is more colorful and fun. While it too focuses on failure, it does so by isolating the proximate cause of multiple well-known failures, including most recently First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Bank.

The third series — “The Shape of Crisis” — uses a proprietary dataset constructed over fifteen years to reveal for the first time publicly the shape of every major banking crisis to strike in the United States since George Washington was first inaugurated in 1790.

The fourth series — “Quotes of Consequence” — pulls from a collection of nearly 500 of the most trenchant quotes about banking from the past three centuries, including quotes from J. Pierpont Morgan, Warren Buffett, A.P. Giannini and Jamie Dimon.

Finally, intermixed throughout the catalog are images of more general significance.

All of the images are printed on high-quality, textured photo paper and, if desired, are shipped in frames curated with both ascetics and affordability in mind. You’ll find a pricing guide and ordering instructions on the second-to-last page.

All images are buy-one-get-one free for paid subscribers to the MasfieldonBanks Substack.

You can access the catalog by clicking this link (PDF download).

I’d love to know what you all think.

Yours truly,

John