“The true test of an album, and the images in it, is two-fold. Is it an object of great desire and value in the eyes of your customers? And will it be a safe place for your images — an heirloom to be treasured by future generations?”
We’re deeply committed to the quality and longevity of our albums, particularly the prints (and memories) they’re designed to hold. Even so you may notice that we don’t generally use terms like museum quality or archival to describe them, even though we sometimes see those words bandied around loosely by our competitors. Here’s why.
An album is made up of dozens of products and materials, many of which aren’t primarily associated with photography. Some of the most important aren’t even associated with bookbinding.
To describe the album as a whole as museum quality or archival is therefore almost always misleading. Take our cover materials, for example, where we currently offer almost fifty options in a variety of different fabric types and colours. Why? Because our customers value beauty, personal choice and design freedom above everything else. Photographers’ tastes differ, and so do their customers. We’re happy to offer you choice provided it doesn’t compromise the longevity and integrity of the finished product.
If we restricted ourselves to museum quality materials, we’d be able to offer almost no choice, most people wouldn’t like what we could offer, and albums as a presentation and marketing tool for photographers would disappear.
The true test of an album, and the images in it, is two-fold. Is it an object of great desire and value in the eyes of your customers? And will it be a safe place for your images, an heirloom to be treasured by future generations?
We describe our albums as ”photo friendly”. In fact they’re the friendliest of all places to store your prints provided they’re kept in a cool, dry place, and closed when not being viewed, to protect the images from light. Just as important, because the prints are in one secure location, they cannot be lost or given away! These are not empty claims. The very first albums we made, over half a century ago, are in the home of our founder, Heather, and the prints still look as beautiful as ever.
Further information
Our conservation quality prints, pages and mats: Here you’ll find general notes related to conservation, sustainability and product care that apply to all Queensberry print stocks and print technologies, and also to our mats and pages. Also included, suggested language for your own retail website.
Are Queensberry’s products “fine art”? The short answer is yes, the long answer depends on what you mean by fine art! You can certainly call our prints “fine art” if all you're selling is matte or textured inkjet prints. And if you're offering lustre inkjet or silver halide prints alongside them, as we do, it's perfectly fine to call them all "fine art". In this article we explain why. These are marketing words — use the ones that, in good conscience, speak to and support your brand.
Alexandria
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