2012 Cover Series
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Q & A of the Day
How do you define your photo book design style?
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Simply put: To showcase each photograph and to reflect your family.
I believe in clean, refined layouts and love to inspire the everyday moments that make your family unique. I love to focus on the photographs themselves. That means, I try to make as many photographs full page or full spread as possible while keeping in mind the total number of pages and photographs you want for your book.
As you saw in my most recent podcast, organization and having a structured book is really important to me. Every book I design and deliver has an organizing principle behind it. This is what pulls it all together! My goal is to make sure each page makes perfect sense for the photographs and the entire books makes sense to define your year.
And if I had to chose three words to describe what I strive for with each design: modern, sophisticated, and refined.
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2012 Cover Series
[divider] If you love this example or if it gives you some ideas for your photo book, pin it!
[divider]Make sure you sign up for the Book This Project weekly newsletter. I have a free download when you sign up!
2012 Cover Series
As I described last week, with photo book covers, you don’t always have to place a photo on the cover. Here is an example of a photo book cover featuring a specialty font. This cover is elegant and simple.
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2012 Cover Series
When you are considering the cover for your photo book, if you have more than one kid it can get a bit tricky. As I have shown in previous examples, I advise, when possible, to have similar looking photographs of your kids for the cover. Or of course, it could be a great one of the two (or however many kids you have) of them. But is you are a bit indecisive…you can always keep a very simple cover. Throughout the year, I will showcase some covers that have no photographs to them at all. And I am really drawn to this idea. It keeps it simple, understated and almost a surprise to what is inside. This is a solid color cover with a simple year in the bottom right corner. It is possible to have the same color every year. That way, you will always know where to find your family photo books. Or you could do a variety of colors or various shades each year. Start light and the covers keep getting darker and darker as the years go by. Think about how fantastic that will look on your shelf! Here is a quick example and keep checking out our Cover Series every Friday for more inspiration!
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Favorite Blanket
One of the essential categories to photograph every year are favorites. Since this can change every year (maybe even every month or week!), I love the idea of photographing your child’s favorite objects in life. Perhaps for most kids, their favorite of their favorites deals with sleeping. This could be their favorite blanket or stuffed animal. This is the thing you are scared to lose…even scared to wash. For any night trip away, you have to make sure you have included their favorite blankey, softie, or whatever terms of affection it goes by in your household.
For my oldest, he never really had one of these objects. The closest thing was a stuffed pillow-like dog that he like to curl up with. But if it happened to not be in the bed, he usually didn’t notice. My youngest on the other hand, has a small softie that she looks for every time. And you can trick her with something that looks and feels like it…she knows which one is hers. This small, pink blanket gets extremely dirty. She loves to chew on the corners and keep it close to her cheek. So it is really important to make sure it is always near by for any nap or bed time!
I wanted to photograph her with her blanket one day during her nap time.
Here are some simple tips for photographing sleeping children:
1. Set my camera to quiet mode (yes! my camera has one of these!).
2. Got my settings close to what I thought would be necessary for a slightly dark room.
3. Snuck in close to the time I thought she would be waking up.
I was hoping to get some of her sleeping but she woke up as soon as I opened the door. How it goes sometimes! Even though I couldn’t capture sleepy, closed-eye photos, this is the perfect time to capture an awesome yawn! Plus her favorite sleep blanket.
Take action! Capture your child’s favorite toy, object, or stuffed animal sometime this weekend. Have a goal, to photograph them while they are interacting with it. But…if not, you can always isolate the object. Your child will love having a photograph of their favorite thing!
Check out the blog on Monday to see how I transform these photos into a design layout!
And with this post, I have marked off two items on my 50 Essential Ways to Photograph your Family in a year. Do you have your copy yet? If not, make sure to sign up for the newsletter by clicking this image:
2012 Cover Series
My intention for this book cover idea is to have the red bar wrap around the spine and the back. The front cover has a photograph of my son; the back cover features my daughter. These photographs speak more to their adventures as a kids and so I have titled this example: “Adventures in 2012.”
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2012 Cover Series
2012 Cover Series
Today’s 2012 Cover Series highlights the interaction between my two children. I have cropped it tight to focus on their glances and I used two small lines at the top and bottom of the photograph to symbolize my two kids. The title is simple and points out the focus of the photograph selected for the cover. Plus it gives some indication that in my family book, I am going to focus on them – brother and sister!
[divider] If you love this example or if it gives you some ideas for your photo book, pin it!
2012 Cover Series
My previous cover examples all feature one photograph. In this cover design, I am featuring one photograph of each of my children. However to tie them together, the two photographs have something in common – sunglasses. They are wearing the same sunglasses and I thought it was really cute, not only of my little girl wearing her glasses…but also big brother! This is a great tip for you as you begin thinking about your cover. Perhaps it is a couple of photographs of your kids doing a similar activity. Or it could be a from a similar season – ie two photographs from the summer time.
Another thing to keep in mind when using two photographs on the cover is the scale of the subject. This particular example could be improved, my son’s face fills the frame a little more than my daughters, but you will notice they are both head shots. If you have a full body shot of one kid, it is a good idea to include a full body shot of the other. It ties them together. Of course there are exceptions, but starting out, it is a good idea to keep things similar!
Finally, for the title of the book, I decided to use a phrase or question. If there is something that really ties to the photograph on the cover or something that you or one of your kids likes to say, this would make a perfect cover title.
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