Following on from last week's post, here are a few more album design tips. For all you photographers designing your own. 

Let them breathe…

We touched on cropping last time, but it's worth repeating!

Sure photo-bombing is fun, but generally we like the core elements of an image to have a nice amount of breathing space to the edge of the page, or image "frame". In fact think of it exactly like framing a picture: it gives the subject a sense of intent and importance. Jamming things up against the image edge often looks awkward.

But "breathing room" is also important for practical reasons. Our book blocks are trimmed on the guillotine in production, meaning you always lose 1-2mm from around the block. And if you’re ordering a digital copy, the print will be scaled down dramatically, meaning that that 1-2mm trims away much more of the image.

Then, suppose your camera shoots a 3:2 aspect ratio image. A 12x8 won't need cropping, but if the design calls for a 10x8 you'll be pleased you have some breathing room around the subject that you can cut away!

Finally if you're using our free design service, the team will tell you that tightly cropped images give them problems for all the above reasons.

Create a grid

By using standard aperture sizes you can create a block of images that line up in nice grid-like structures, giving clean lines, consistent spacing, and simplified style. Templates make this very easy. And once again, be sure to give the images a nice amount of breathing space from the edge of the page:  like framing a picture, this gives the subject a sense of importance and also gives us some allowance when we guillotine the page edge!

Consistency counts

Photographers have access to creative editing tools that didn’t exist a generation ago … but sometimes those “special effects” look out of place in an album. Bear in mind that the images in an album don’t stand alone, but alongside each other on the same page, or in the same book. Consistent colour and style help an album come together.

And if you haven't already, be sure to check out our lunch time chat with album designers Simon and Rachel, and their top four design tips here. 

Alexandria x