I love photo books. I wish I could have hundreds of it. But you know what I love more? A well design photo book, that is. I don't know about you but it seems that when you have a baby chances are you will take lots and lots of pictures. And I mean a lot. Because you totally need 10 pictures of the same pose that your baby makes right? Or is it just me? Oh, well I rest my case then.
The one thing that I love about photo book is that you have something tangible that you can touch and hold which is a rare thing nowadays considering everything comes in the form of e-book or e-card. I mean don't get me wrong. I love the idea of making everything digital because yay for going green but sometimes I just have to have it okay? Okay. And did I mention it's an essential item for your coffee table and even #shelfie? (yeah, totally a thing).
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This is the first step when you want to create your own photo book. Decide first on the theme. It could be about your daughter's first year or your intimate wedding moments, a trip to Paris or simply shots from where I stand. Having a theme in your photo book helps so much when you want plan your pages. It helps tell your story more clearly and in an organized way.
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This is my numero uno tip when you want to achieve a timeless look. Think minimalist. You want the inside of your photo book to just have a relevant pictures. Try not to add too many things and limit your photos to 1 - 2 pics per page. Another tip is for you to only select the best pictures to be featured in your photo book. Remember, you want to look back at the photo book 10 years from now and still love it. Another thing to bare in mind is you should not add any elements like graphics, fonts or stickers to your picture layout. Let your photos shine on its own.
PRO TIP : Pick up your favorite coffee table book or your wedding album. Observe how the pictures is being put together. Notice the way they arrange the pictures and try to copy their style.
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Photo books is all about images right? Right. So do yourself a favor and only feature high quality images in your photo book. Your future self will thank you. There's nothing worse than having a low resolution pictures on your photo book. Usually when you order a photo book through a company and you start designing using their software, it will tell you if your photos are in low resolution state. Then you'll have two options : Discard them immediately; or use this tutorial to fix it using Photoshop.
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Ever notice that when you are looking at a nice photo book you feel so relax and your eyes don't feel strained? That's because they implement the usage of white space. Whenever you want to start designing yours, implement white space in all of your pages. Always add borders when you want to put two or more pictures in one page. This helps to let the eyes rest and not makes anyone who look at your photo book to feel overwhelm.
Composition is another important aspect when you are designing a photo book. You need to decide how you want the photos to look like. For example if you have a beautiful full front pictures of your daughter you can play with it. There's so many ways that you can represent the photos. Think outside of the box. Like for example you can crop the pictures and just feature her smiling faces blowing up on one page or you can take the picture and crop all of their body parts (on screen, of course!) and feature them on one page using little boxes. Compose your stories using pictures and be playful while you're at it.
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Always edit all of your pictures. But take care not to overdo it. I can't stress this enough. Even if you think that your picture is nice, bumping up the brightness always makes the picture ten times better. When in doubt, go black and white. If you have a candid moment or the picture is not that pretty to be featured in your photo book but you love it because of the story behind it, then make it black and white. Other style of edit that I love in a photo book is to mattify your picture because it gives such a luxe look to your photos.
PRO TIP : Make sure you edit your pictures the same way and apply it to all of your photos so that it has a consistent feel to it. It helps so much if you have a photo editing software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop because you can batch edit all your photos using the same style. Don't mix the edit with too much style or you'll end up making your photo book looks cheap and outdated (trust me on this one. Been there, done that).
So there you have it folks! Hope you enjoy my mini tutorial on how to design your own timeless photo books. If you happen to use my advice please let me know by commenting below. I'd love to see the result. Till then take care and have a nice weekend ahead!
All imges via Artifact Uprising
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