Designing a beautiful photo album requires careful consideration of layout, alignment, and image selection. Follow these tips to create stunning albums that showcase your photos effectively:
1. Pay attention to what images sit in the gutter or crease of the spine
When laying out your album, be mindful of the crease and gutter in the centre of the pages. Avoid placing important elements, such as faces or other key parts of the image, directly in the crease or gutter. This ensures that no essential details get lost in the binding of the album.
Understanding the different gutter types can help you choose the right layout for your album design.
2. Check Alignment and Gaps
Maintain consistency in alignment throughout the album to create a polished look. Pay attention to spacing between images and ensure there are no awkward or random gaps, or misalignments. Consistent alignment enhances the overall flow of the album.
3. Prioritise Client's Favourite Images
Before getting started, ask your clients to select their favourite or most important images. These images should take centre stage in the album and serve as the heroes of the layout. Highlighting these key moments ensures that the album resonates emotionally with the client.
4. Less is More - Avoid Overcrowding
Resist the temptation to overcrowd pages with too many photos. Embrace white space to give each image room to breathe. A clean and uncluttered layout allows the viewer to focus on the beauty of the photographs. If necessary consider a larger page size.
5. Optimal Image Sizes
Avoid making photos too small, especially if they contain important details or emotions. Enlarge key images to ensure they have the impact they deserve. Balance image sizes throughout the album to maintain visual interest and allow the detail in the image to shine.
6. Chronological Order
Arranging the photos in chronological order helps to tell a coherent story. This approach allows viewers to follow the progression of events and relive their special moments. One thing to note; we always do our best to keep specific contexts together - for example we will do our best in wedding albums to keep one person’s "getting ready" images together and have the other person’s on a different layout to help break the story into chapters. This will also help with continuity of lighting and colour, particularly when separating indoor and outdoor contexts.
7. Safe Zones and Guillotining
In Workspace, we have designated ‘safe zones’ for guillotining. Please ensure that no important subject matter is within 10mm of the edge of the page (eg. feet, text, faces, etc) to avoid being trimmed off when the pages are being guillotined.
For matted albums, the images need to either be full bleed or 12.5mm from the edge of the page to allow for guillotining. However 15-20mm is best to give some breathing space to the image.
8. Layout Colour Correction
Ensure consistent color correction across all images to maintain visual harmony throughout the album. Adjust brightness, contrast, and color balance as needed to achieve a cohesive look. Consistent color correction enhances the overall aesthetic appeal of the album.
9. Design Layouts, Not Pages
Think of the album as a coherent visual story rather than a collection of individual images or pages. Bear in mind that what people will see are layouts (i.e. the back of one page and the front of the next) so place the images with that in mind. Also, design layouts that flow seamlessly from one page to the next, creating a unified narrative. Focus on creating a captivating experience for the viewer from beginning to end.
10. Consider File Size
Pay attention to the file size of your images to ensure they are suitable for full-bleed printing. High-resolution images are essential for achieving crisp and detailed prints. Resize and optimise images as needed to meet printing requirements without compromising quality.
11. Practice Makes Perfect
Designing exceptional photo albums takes practice and experimentation. Take the time to refine your skills and learn from each project. With dedication and practice, you'll become more proficient at creating visually stunning albums that delight your clients.
TECHNICAL TIPS:
Fine Art printing in matted albums: As Fine Art printing is more delicate, you need to be careful how you arrange the images to ensure the matting isn’t rubbing against the print. For this reason, Overlay Matted albums with Fine Art printing should always have matting surrounding the image, and full bleed images should be avoided.
Design with your title page in mind: If you are ordering a title page with your album, we recommend always having the first image centred on the page. This will ensure the text lays nicely over the image, rather than hanging off to the side.
Duo albums: We recommend designing the first layout with either the mat completely surrounding the image, or full bleed (no mat). Avoid split mats. This will help avoid creasing on the title page from an uneven surface.
Alexandria
Comments