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Kid Author: 3 Tips to Help your Kid Write a Photo Book

Kid Author: 3 Tips to Help your Kid Write a Photo Book

by | Jun 11, 2019 | Description, Inspiration

*This blog post contains affiliate links. By clicking on a link and making a purchase, Book This Project will earn a small commission. I only recommend products I use and highly recommend to make your photo book experience better. 

During one of our summer vacation at the beach, we experienced our first King Tide. My mother-in-law explained that this is the highest predicted high tide of the year based on how the Sun, Earth and Moon line up. My daughter, who just finished her first grade year, was completely fascinated by this idea and kept imagining herself as a mermaid experiencing the high tide. I made the suggestion that she should take this idea and make a story out of it. We could make a photo book together. As I’m sure you could imagine, my heart skipped a beat when she jumped up and down and was excited to make her very own book. Usually, my suggestions are not met with as much enthusiasm. So, one afternoon of our vacation, we skipped the ocean, sat out on the screened in porch and worked on this photo book. Here are a few of my favorite tips and suggestions to help your own budding author!

1: Set up the Photo Book Parameters ahead of time

Before you start the process with your kid, I recommend that you set up the photo book parameters (paper, cover, etc), define the approximate number of pages and import the graphics or any photos that you want to incorporate. This saves some of the boring work and allows you to get started with the fun stuff when you sit down to work on it with your little one.

For this photo book, I recommend using Blurb’s BookWright program. Our photo book was a soft cover book with standard paper.

Another piece of advice, have your son or daughter think through a rough outline of the story ahead of time as well. This gives you a sense of how they are starting to formulate the basic structure of the story. Of course, it doesn’t have to be perfect but you’ll want to make sure they have a main character that follows a series of action steps. Bonus points if the action that a character is doing leads up to a conclusion, or main point.

2: Write the book with pre-made graphics in mind

Before we got started with writing, I looked for graphics that roughly match the storyline she’s created. If your kid loves to draw, you could easily have them make drawings for the photo book. However, this will add a little more time to the process. For me, especially on vacation, it was easier to find already made graphics that we could use.

For our story, I used these graphics from Creative Market. I loved this pack because it included characters (mermaids) plus flora/fauna to add interest to the page. It also had frames and speech bubbles in the same graphic style which made the book creative and consistent.

Since the graphics were already imported into the design program (see tip 1), we went page by page with my daughter selecting which graphic she wanted to use. Then she would tell me the text and I would type it in. Once we finished the full story, we read back through it and made any edits together. In this process, I would ask her if what she originally said made sense and confirm it’s what she wants. If I had a slight tweak, I’d make a suggestion for her approval. Then we’d give one final read through. Once it was set, I handled all of the uploading and ordering process.

3: Share the book for others to purchase

One of the great things about using Blurb is that you can share the book with family and even set the book up for sale. With the cost of the printing of the photo book makes it difficult to make money, it is something fun for kids to look forward to.

You can check out (and even purchase) my daughter’s photo book here.

To set up your child’s book for others to purchase, you’ll have this option after you upload the photo book to Blurb’s website. So once you order the book, all you have to do is answer a few simple questions to set it up for others to purchase.

If you want even more tips and details – I share over 35 screenshots showing you how we made this photo book – sign up for my Special Photo Book Project: Summer Guide. This mini-workshop will be released in a few weeks but you can pre-order it now for a discount!

Using Textflow in BookWright

Using Textflow in BookWright

by | Apr 10, 2019 | Description, Photo Book Design Layout, Tutorial

Usually, if I’m going to add text to my photo book, it’s going to be as a title on the page or a caption to a photo. But that doesn’t work for everyone. Some people want to incorporate longer pieces of text – such as long-form journal entries – combined with photos into a photo book. Recently, a reader reached out to me asking how to accomplish this using BookWright. While it can definitely be finicky, BookWright does have an autoflow text feature. 

What exactly is autoflow text?

 It means that there is one text that can be sub-divided into various text boxes throughout your entire photo book. And this isn’t accomplished by copying/pasting different sentences into each box. Instead, if you want to edit the text, you’re editing one text file – even though it appears in several boxes and pages, throughout your book. 

This allows you to consistently edit the features of your text at once yet customize how much of the text you want to appear on a particular page. 

So let me walk through how to incorporate a larger piece of text into your photo book. 

STEP 01: SAVE YOUR TEXT AS AN RTF FILE.

The first step is to convert your text file into an RTF file that can be read / used within BookWright.

For this example, I’m using a text file I created for one of my recent emails, which is a Google Doc file. 

To transform this google doc file into something BookWright can use, simply head to the File menu and select “Download As” then select “Rich Text Format (.rtf).” This will automatically download your text into your Downloads folder. 

Follow a similar process if you are using Microsoft Word or Apple Pages. 

Important Tip: 

I recommend writing, reviewing and editing your entire text before converting it into an .rtf file. It will be so much easier to edit your text in the word software program you are using, rather than trying to edit in BookWright. 

 

STEP 02: IMPORT YOUR TEXT INTO BOOKWRIGHT

The next step is to import this text file into BookWright. You’ll want to make sure that you are in the Text Files tab of the program. 

Once you’re here, select “Import RTF Files” and then locate the file in your Downloads folder, or wherever you saved your text file. 

Once the file has been imported, you’ll see the text file here (rectangle), just as you would with photos (in the photos tab). 

To insert the text into a text box on the page, all you have to do is drag and drop the file onto the page you want. 

A dialogue box will appear asking what type of layout to insert the text file into. I select the standard one text box per page. 

Once the text is placed, you can always adjust the size and location of the text box. This initial layout is just to get you started on the page. 

Important Tip: 

Since each file you import shows up as a separate entity, one thing you can do is create multiple files for the text you want to include in your photo book. This allows you to finish a text completely and add it to your book before the full text is finished. For example, if you wanted to include a journal entry (2-4 pages of text) for each month, treat each of the entries as separate rtf file. 

 

STEP 03: ADJUST THE TEXT BOXES.

The text is initially placed as two large photo boxes on the page. Usually, my first step is to delete the text box on the right page (unless I know I want two full pages of text). Once that text box is deleted, I have more control about how and where I want my text to flow. 

Now, deleting text boxes can be finicky in this program. If you click on the text box, even around the border, it will open up the text styles/editing box….which is not what you want.

To delete a text box, you have to move you cursor outside of the text box boundary, click and hold down on the mouse, and then drag to the opposite corner of the text box. This will select the text box without bringing up the text window.

Then hit the delete key.

This removes the text from the box but will keep the actual text box. In order to delete the box, you have to click delete a second time or you can click on the trashcan icon of the text box (lower right corner). 

When you are ready to continue your text into another text box, even if it’s on another page, you’ll select the text box and at the bottom there is an orange “Text Flow” button.

Click it and your cursor will change – allowing you to create a new text box. At this point, find the location you want for the text to continue and drag your cursor to form the approximate shape of the box you want. You can always adjust this later. 

You’ll notice in the upper left-hand corner of any text flow box, it tells you where the text fits in the overall number of text boxes. For example, if you’ve placed 4 text boxes for a particular journal entry, you can click on a box to discover that a particular box is 2 (second) of the total 4 text boxes. This comes in handy in you have multiple boxes forming your text. 

 

Important Tip: 

Form text boxes that align with the photos on the page. Don’t forget to use the align tools that come with BookWright to make everything on the page look intentional.

 

STEP 04: ADJUST TEXT STYLES. 

One benefit to using the autoflow feature is that you can can adjust the text – from any text box – in the one text style/editing dialogue box. If you decide you want to delete a sentence or change a word, it is done through this window. In other words, text edits are never made on the actual page.

You can adjust the style of the text from this window as well. To change the font style, size, alignment, etc., click on the actual text (left side of the box) then hit control (or open apple) + A to select all of the text. Once selected, make the adjustments you want.

Then click “Update Text Flow” for the changes to appear in your layouts. Keep in mind, this may affect how much of the text is visible within the text box. I recommend you make any major style changes at the beginning, before you spend too much time adjusting the actual shape and location of the text box. 

Important Tip: 

Since all of the text is edited through this one dialogue box, I recommend you keep the actual text used in multiple boxes (autoflow text) as primarily the body copy of your text. You can always make certain words/phrases bold or italic, if needed. However, you’ll want to minimize the special features you define within this text style/editing box. With that in mind, I also recommend that you remove titles and photo captions from this file and make them separate stand-alone text boxes (not autoflow text) within your photo book. 

 

I hope that helped to see how to incorporate a larger amount of text into your photo book. If you want to go deeper and learn how to fully use Blurb’s free software program, BookWright, check out my do-it-yourself workshop – Document Your Year.

WORKSHOP

DOCUMENT YOUR YEAR

Two Methods to Add Color to Your Photo Book

Two Methods to Add Color to Your Photo Book

by | Mar 11, 2019 | Color, Description, Inspiration, Photo Book Design Layout, Tutorial

One quick and easy way to make your photo book look more intentional is to have custom designed divider pages. If you’re including these pages in your photo book, I recommend having them stand out from your other pages with design elements, text and/or color. However, I also understand – you don’t have a lot of time to customize these pages.

It’s one of the reasons I’m creating my Graphic Design Packs every month. These design packs will quickly introduce color or patterns on your pages, particularly the divider pages in your photo book.

There are two ways to add color if you are using Blurb’s free software program, BookWright. Whether you are using colors from my BTP Graphic Design Pack – or – creating a color profile on your own, this video tutorial shares the two methods to achieve add color to your photo book.

 

Want to learn even more tools in BookWright?

Check out my free email series sharing 5 design lessons to make your photo book more stylish without overwhelm. 

Using the BTP Graphic Design Packs

Using the BTP Graphic Design Packs

by | Feb 12, 2019 | BookWright, Description, Inspiration, Motivation, Photo Book Design Layout

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

One of my goals this year is to flex my graphic design muscle. It’s been a while since I’ve focused on how color, font styles and patterns can come together to customize a photo book. And with everything in life, one only improves with practice. 

So this year, every month I’m creating free graphics – that includes color jpegs + CMYK values, font ideas and several patterns – to help “dress up” your photo book. My graphic packs are free during the month they are released and then will be in my shop for $10 when the month concludes. 

While every download comes with general instructions, I thought it would help to see how exactly you can use these graphics to transform your photo book from blah to amazing.  

Import and use the graphic images from the design pack you want to use in your photo book just as you would any other photo. 

If you’re new to making photo books, I recommend Blurb’s BookWright free software tool (clicking this link will support Book This Project) and you should definitely check out my workshop, Document Your Year. This workshop shares everything you need to know to make a beautiful photo book for your family.

Once you download the BTP Graphic Design Pack you may be thinking, “This is great….but now what do I do with them???” So I wanted to share 12 layout examples to show you how the BTP Graphic Design Pack can make your photo book amazing. These examples are just to get your creative juices flowing. There are so many ways you can use the colors, fonts, and patterns in the graphic design pack to make your book a perfect reflection of your design aesthetic.

I’ll be sharing more examples on Instagram – make sure to follow me here. And I’d love to see how you incorporated the graphic elements into your own photo book. Simply use the hashtag #btpgraphicdesignpack when you post a screenshot of your example.

In these examples, notice the scale, placement, and mixing of different elements are incorporated on the page. 

 

Sign Up to get the current free BTP Graphic Design Pack.

Check out other BTP Graphic Design Packs.

10 Steps to Making a Photo Book This Fall

10 Steps to Making a Photo Book This Fall

by | Oct 10, 2018 | BookWright, Description, Inspiration, Photo Book Design Layout, Photo Book Design Workshop

If you’re looking to make a photo book this year, now is the time to start thinking about it. The earlier you get started – and start making decisions – the better off you’ll be to actually finish a photo book in time for the holidays.

Imagine spending a little bit of time here and there working on your photo book over the next few weeks so when January 1st rolls around, you’ll be able to place your Christmas through New Year’s Eve photos into layouts and then print your photo book. Sounds nice, right?!?!

All it takes is a having a game plan that you can follow step by step.

Today, I’m sharing ten steps, with relevant resources, to walk you through 10 steps to documenting your favorite family photos from the year into a concise and beautiful photo book your family will treasure for many years to come.

 

STEP 1

Define what you want.

While it sounds easy, one of the most common steps people overlook is defining what type of photo book before they get started. It’s so important that you know what type of book, how big, what type of cover and what photo book company you want before you even begin looking at photos or thinking about layouts.

First step is to research different photo book companies to understand what kind of photo book will work best for you, your family, and your photos.

If you’re prone to overwhelm at the beginning, I recommend my free workshop that will help you find the insipiration to start, the motivation to keep going, and design ideas to make your book creative.

 

Target Time Frame: Define what you want for your photo book within one week.  

STEP 2

Get Organized.

Depending on how Type A you are with your photo organization, this first step could take some time. But it’s so crucial and will set the foundation that you’ll appreciate long after you print your photo book.

Before you even get started with selecting photos or laying out your pages, you first must organize your photo library. This means importing all of your photos from the year into one place. All of your photos from your smart phone, dslr, film and any other camera you own should be in one library.

Target Time Frame: Have your photos together and rated by the end of October.

STEP 3

Set up Systems.

If you’re anything like me, life does not provide you with unlimited time to start and finish your goals one at a time. Wouldn’t that be nice? Truth is, we all have multiple projects, family demands, and other commitments competing for our time.

And making a photo book is not easily accomplished within a day or two, unless your photo library is extremely organized (see step 2) and you have a very limited scope such as making a photo book of your favorite summer vacation photos.

To stay with your photo book project through the many starts and stops you’ll experience over the next few weeks/months, I recommend setting up a simple system you can follow.

When I use the term systems, I want you to set up a process for working on your photo book in a logical way that you can track. Being able to track – tell where you left off – is the key part to developing any system.

Refer to this blog post to see how I use one free tool to keep track of my photo book progress.  

Target Time Frame: Define your system by the end of October.

STEP 4

Select Photos.

Selecting photos is without a doubt the hardest step. Our photos are so personal and each photo we keep is for a particular reason. This makes it so difficult to figure out which photos you should actually select for a photo book.

Sometimes it helps to see how and why other people select photos for a photo book. This blog post outlines 2 important factors to consider when selecting photos. If you’re curious to see how / why I selected photos from everyday moments in my life, I’m sharing 4 videos illustrating how I select photos for a particular layout.

While I provide several tips and strategies for selecting photos in my workshops: In 100 Pages and Document Your Year, my main piece of advice for those indecisive photographers (raising my own hand) is to select photos that are the most representative of an event, emotion, or experience.

And don’t dwell on the photo you didn’t select. Years from now you won’t remember the photo you almost selected. Instead, you’ll remember the moment/event because of the photo you did select.

Target Time Frame:  My challenge for you is to select photos for a photo book every single week. Start with photos from one day. You’ll realize, the more you get used to selecting, the faster you’ll get. Promise. 😉

STEP 5

Understand the Program.

If you’ve never made a photo book before – or it’s been several years – I recommend you open up and practice a couple of layouts with the company/design software you’ve selected in Step 1. While most of the free design software is pretty intuitive, it really helps to understand the setup and various tools you can use as you design your pages.

If you plan on using text – either as page titles, captions or page numbers – test this feature as well. You’ll get a sense of how easy it is to add text and your practice will confirm if this is something you actually want to accomplish with this particular photo book.

While practicing a few layouts ahead of time seems like an extra step, it will save you time once you’ve selected photos and are ready to start designing pages.

Target Time Frame:  Open up the software and design a few test pages by Thanksgiving.

STEP 6

Layout Pages.

Once you have a good number of photos selected, it’s time to start designing some layouts! For this step, you don’t have to wait until all of your photos have been selected before you start designing your pages. In fact, starting to layout pages could help you select photos. You’ll start to understand what types of layouts you prefer and what photos work best in those layouts.

Check out this email series for layout design inspiration.

Target Time Frame:  Starting designing layouts in mid-November and continue designing throughout December.

STEP 7

Add a Sense of Style / Design.

If you’re designing a photo book, particularly when you’re customizing your layouts, I recommend adding a sense of style or design intent to your photo book. This can be as simple as adding page numbers, a color, an interesting font or more elaborate design elements such as unusual margins or design graphics. 

For those who want a small bit of interest to their layouts without going overboard, I recommend my photo book template for BookWright: Catalog Collection. This template was designed to give your photos an editorial look that you see in magazine or clothing catalogs. It’s a great way to get started with interesting layouts to showcase your photos. 

Target Time Frame:  Add design elements in December and the beginning of January.

STEP 8

Design a Cover.

I always wait to design my cover until the very end because I like for it to fully represent the entirety of the photo book design. Photo book covers can be simple – such as a family portrait – or more complex with an attention-grabbing design. The goal is for a cover to capture the spirit and vision of a photo book and entices family and friends to pick it up from the coffee table when they are visiting your home.

For photo book cover inspiration, check out my Pinterest board for photo book covers.   

Target Time Frame:  Design your cover at the end of the January.

STEP 9

Review your Photo Book.

Once all of your layouts are finished, it’s time to review your photo book before you upload. I can be pretty obsessive with checking photo books so take my recommendation with a grain of salt, but I recommend checking your layouts several times.

Start with a review of layout in the preview mode. Then I do a spell check of the entire document. In case I spell “their” when I mean “there”, I read through every single caption. Once all of the basic checks are completed, I check one last time in preview mode. 

Target Time Frame:  Finish your review at the beginning of February.

STEP 10

Order your Photo Book.

At last, it’s time to order! After weeks of organizing, selecting, designing and checking, it’s now time to order your photo book.

Target Time Frame:  Order your book at the beginning of February.

While I’ve tried to cover the necessary tips to get you started….I still have more to share!  If you loved this post, you’ll love my self-paced workshop: In One Hundred Pages.

Using Color in your Photo Book.

Using Color in your Photo Book.

by | May 31, 2018 | Color, Description, Design Series, Inspiration, Motivation, Photo Book Design Layout

color in photo book

Lately, I’ve been in the mood to add color to my layouts. In my last blog post, I should 10 ways to add color to layouts. But those suggestions were more for you to pick and choose. In today’s blog post I want to share how you can add a color palette throughout one of your photo books. 

This step is something that you should consider the beginning of the design process, if possible. Here are my decision-making steps: 

-1-  Select how and where you want to use color. 

-2-  What is the primary or dominant color you want to use?  

-3-  What color(s) could support the main color, if any. 

-4-  Define the full color palette. 

-5-  Does this color palette support the overall vision you originally wanted? 

-6-  Implement in your photo book design. 

 

Now let’s see these steps in action. I’m going to use a typical annual photo book for this example. 

I want to use a color palette for section pages, page numbers and any titles on the page. I want to use the same color for all three places. But on the section page, I want to use two other colors to add design variety. 

The dominant color will be the 2018 Pantone color: Ultra Violet.

The supporting colors should be more neutral to balance the purple color. On the Pantone website, they provide several different color combinations. I selected one that resonated with the balanced scheme I was looking for this particular photo book. 

Here is my color palette. 

color in photo book

This color palette matches my original vision because I wanted my family photo book to be fun yet classic. I want the design to have personality without being too bold. 

And here’s the result: 

Section Page:

color in photo book

Typical Page:

color in photo book

Family Cookbook Organization

Family Cookbook Organization

by | Mar 9, 2018 | Description, Design Series, family cookbook

Photo Book Organization

 

When making a photo book, one of the first things to do is establish an organizational structure for your book. This helps when someone flips through the finished book and it also speeds up your workflow. It gives you a clear structure to help you select photos and to figure out where and how the photos fit into your book.

If you’re making an annual photo book, the structure is easy – you can organize it by month. For a vacation book, you can organize it by day or the events that happened during your vacation.

When it comes to making a cookbook, there are several options available for organization. It could be organized by the meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner), the ingredient, or the season to name a few. While it helps to have choices, often it makes the decision harder to make. And I don’t want you to get stuck so I’m starting a new design series tracking six cooksbooks I own that will help illustrate key design decisions.

In this blog post, I’m starting with the Table of Contents to help identify how other cookbooks have organized the recipes.

 

Cookbook Organization

With each of the cookbooks I’m sharing, I’m including the basic organization, the title & author, and a few examples of the sections. Use this as inspiration to look in your own cookbook collection and see how some of your favorites have organized the recipes.

Food Type

Appetites: A Cookbook

Anthony Bourdain

  • Breakfast
  • Salads
  • Sandwiches 

Time of Day

Prune

Gabrielle Hamilton

 

  • Lunch Dessert
  • Dinner Small Plates
  • Prep Daily/Weekly

Emotion

Comfort Food

Jamie Oliver

 

  • Nostalgia
  • Good Mood Food
  • Pick Me Ups

Cooking Method

The Blue Apron Cookbook

The Blue Apron Culinary Team

 

  • Sunday Roasts
  • Braises
  • Pan-Seared Meats

Ingredient

Deep Run Roots

Vivian Howard

 

  • Sweet Corn
  • Peaches
  • Eggs

Variations on One Ingredient

Pork & Sons

Stephane Reynaud

 

  • For the Love of Sausages
  • Hamming It Up
  • Barbecued Pork

Defining Your Cookbook Organization

So what is right for your cookbook?

Let’s walk through a few criteria to help you figure out how you want to organize your cookbook.

 

Gut Reaction.

Is there one type of organization that immediately stands out for you? Do you always love when you flip through a cook book with a certain organization? If so, start with that one.

Your next step is to list out sample sections and determine how well the recipes you want to include fits into those categories. If you are getting stuck – for example, don’t know how your recipes fit into these categories – go back and adjust your list. You may want to switch out the categories or organizational structure.

To illustrate this further, if you love cookbooks organized by Time of Day but realize you have few lunch recipes you want to include, switch the categories to something more like Food Type and see if that better fits your recipes.

 

Simplicity.

Making a cookbook is difficult and time consuming. There are a lot of steps that you’ll have to include. Testing and typing up the recipes. Making the food and photographing the finished product. Selecting and Editing the photos. Designing the layouts.

So you don’t want to overcomplicate the structure. While you may love the idea of organizing it by Emotion, you don’t want the structure to further complicate the process. You don’t want to spend too much time deciding on the right categories and how meals will fall into them.

For example, if you’ll spend hours trying to decide if your grandmother’s potato casserole should go into a Family Heirloom Recipes section or a Comfort Food section…select another organizational structure to avoid having to make those little decisions.

 

What’s Missing.

Another way to determine how to organize your cookbook is to ask yourself, what do you find missing from other cookbooks you have in your collection? You have a desire to make a family cookbook; ask yourself why. Your motivation is probably because something is missing from yuor existing cookbooks. Use this reason to structure your book.  

One example, you love all of your cookbooks but are missing a collection of your family receipes. This informs you to make a cookbook solely of family receipes. Maybe you want to organize it by family members who reminds of you particular dish.

 

My Cookbook.

 

For my cookbook, I’m following a combination of all three suggestions.

Gut Reaction + Simplicity:  Time of Day or Food Type is my initial preference for a simple organizational structure.

What’s Missing: For me, what’s missing from the cookbooks I own, is a collection of our standard go-to meals and how these favorites could be arranged in meal plan format. My goal is to organize our favorite meals into weekend meals that could lead into easy-to-prepare weekday meals.

For example, I want to connect how braised short ribs on Saturday could lead to short rib tacos on Monday night. This would also help link ingredients to different recipes. If I’m using dill for a weekend meal, what are other simple meals I could make over the next few days so I’m not wasting the ingredient.

This will take a little more planning upfront but will make my cookbook more useful and relevant for our family.

 

Now I’d love to hear from you. Have you seen a creative way structure a cookbook that wasn’t mentioned above?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gathering Inspiration for your photo book

Gathering Inspiration for your photo book

by | Jan 30, 2018 | Description, family cookbook, Inspiration

Once you’ve set your photo book goal for the year, it’s time to start gathering inspiration to define the vision for your photo book. To help define your vision, you’ll want to look for layouts, covers, fonts, colors, and an overall tone for your book. 

There are several places I frequently turn to when I start my inspiration gathering for photo book projects. I’m sharing three of my favorite sources of inspiration with you plus an action step to get you started.

Pinterest is the first and most obvious place to go to for inspiration and to gather all of your favorite ideas in one place. 

Some of my favorite search terms for Pinterest when looking for photo book inspiration are:

  • photo book or photo book design
  • magazine layouts
  • editorial design
  • color palette
  • font or font combinations

To gather your ideas in one place, I want you to create a specific pin board for each photo book project. If you have 2-3 ideas you’re working through, you need a pin board for each one (unless you want to have a similar vision for all of the books). This will help consolidate your vision for one photo book instead of having to sift through and remember the ideas you originally had for your book. 

This also means you can go through pins you’ve already collected on your standard boards and collect the ideas that relate to your current specific project.

Flipping through magazines is one of my favorite ways to feel inspired and more importantly motivated to get working on my photo book. Often when I go through magazines, it’s not about seeing a specific layout but more about seeing the design come together that makes me want to see my own photos come together on the page. 

Another way magazines inspire my photo book vision is to see how more avant garde design comes together. Now, I realize magazine design is not the most experimental form of editorial design. However, it is the most accessible form I come across on a daily basis. This helps push some of the design concepts and things I want to try. 

Two of my favorite magazines I go to for inspiration are Bon Appetit and Living. 

Finally, I love visiting websites to feel inspired by design principles. While the composition of the elements are slightly different in web versus printed form, I glean a lot of ideas from seeing how the various fonts, colors, and blocks of photos come together on websites. 

Here are a few items I pay attention to when visiting websites for inpsiration:

  • What is the color palette and how are the colors used? 
  • How are titles incorporated on the page? 
  • What are the text style heirarchies established and how were they used? 
  • Are there design elements that make design more interesting? 
  • How does the organization help you move through the site? 
  • What is the overall feeling you experience when visisting the website?
  • What design elements contributed to that feeling? 

Now it’s your turn. Find your inspiration and gather them in a specific pin board on pinterest. This will collect all of your potential ideas and things that inspire you – all in one place. 

Now, it’s important to title your board with your specific book project idea. You don’t want to use this board for any and every photo book idea. 

Instead, you want to specifically gather ideas from pinterest, magazine and websites that speak directly to what you may want to use for your 2018 book project. 

In the end, you may not use everything, however, it’s important to have a good place to start from. So create your board today and find at least 10 ideas to pin to your board to get started.

Want to follow along with my board? Click here to sign up. 

In One Hundred Pages Workshop Review

In One Hundred Pages Workshop Review

by | Nov 12, 2017 | Description, Design Series, Photo Book Design Workshop

All month, we’ve been working on organizing our photo library. It started with getting them all in one location. This meant one folder or catalog for all of your photos. This includes all of your DSLR, mirrorless, film, underwater, and/or smart phone photos. Getting them in one location helps you realize your starting point.

The next step was to go through and delete your unwanted photos. The goal was at least 10% of your total library. Decluttering your library now makes it easier to go through the photos that actually matter.

Finally, it was time to show your photos some love and rate your photos. If you don’t have a rating system in place, now is the time to get one. Most programs have one – even the free ones. So discover your preferred method and start rating the photos you love. If you already have a rating system, it’s time to get caught up and rate photos you may have missed throughout the year.

If you’ve found this helpful, you’ll love my photo book design workshop: In One Hundred Pages.

In this workshop, we’ll go even deeper together to organize your library, select the right photos for a photo book and design pages faster than you’ve ever done. My exact process is broken down into clearly organized action steps to help you succeed. The results: a beautiful photo book you’ll treasure forever.

Sometimes it takes hearing from past participants to know if this workshop will work for you. I want to share a casual conversation I had with an In 100 Pages participant last year who finished her photo book according to the challenges laid out in the workshop. If you can relate to her story in anyway, I know you’ll benefit from this workshop and would love to have you join us.

 

 

If you’re ready to print your photos with ease, click here to get started.

Show your photos some love

Show your photos some love

by | Nov 11, 2017 | Description, Design Series, Motivation

Previously, our mission was to delete unwanted photos from our photo library. I was able to delete some photos here and there throughout the week and then spent the time during my daughter’s ballet lesson to delete 215 photos in about 45 minutes!

I shared my process on instagram stories. Make sure to follow me to see more insta stories as I work on printing my photos this fall.

After my full week of focusing on deleting the clutter, I was able to delete 595 photos from my library, exceeding my goal of 477 photos. How’d you do? Even if you didn’t quite meet your goal, any progress is progress you should celebrate.

Now that we’ve deleted the clutter, it’s time to show some love.

I want you to go back through your photo library and rate the photos you love. If you don’t yet have a system for noting your favorites, now is the time. Use stars, hearts, colors or tags to mark the photos that mean something to you.

My preferred rating system is to start by giving photos I love 3 stars. This week, I’m going to through my library and making sure the photos I’ve edited and or want to edit have this 3-star rating. And I’ll be sharing some of my faves on instagram.

Why does this matter? Rating the photos you love, makes it easier to know which photos you want to print when you’re ready.

To make this extremely actionable, my goal for you is to find 1 hour in your week and rate the photos you love.

Any progress you make in this 1 hour will help you immensely in the long run.

Cool? You’ve got this! Trust me when I tell you that these small actions will help you print the precious photos of your family.