To design or not design...that is the question

[jgrim8]

A lot of clients are starting to ask about digital coffee table

books. I really love Asuka Book (their prices are really good), but

you have to design the whole thing yourself...which I wouldn't mind,

but I'm not a designer and what if I don't have a lot of time. Then

there is Leather Craftsman, who design it for you, yet their prices

are a little high....but you do get what you pay for. White Wedding

Album is not bad (kind of in between the price range). My question

is...do you design your own album and charge for design time too, or

do you get your album company to do it for you. Just curious.

[lex_jenkins]

Hey, I've been wondering the same thing. I'm planning to put a couple of DIY books together for family to document some important things going on for posterity.

 

I do have a background in design, from the grunt work of running a phototypesetter and applying hot wax to the copy, to designing pages (and I used to be pretty good at calligraphy before my hands got trembly). But I'll admit to being a bit intimidated by the all-on-screen process. When I was doing it years ago it was all done by hand, sketching ideas on paper, transferring them for paste up, evaluating everything and redoing it a few times. I tried to get the hang of using software with my old Macs and some programs that were pretty spiffy for that time. But I never felt comfortable with it.

 

I haven't tackled this project yet and won't charge my family anything for one copy per each family in the immediate circle (I'll have to charge my cost beyond that, tho'). I'll regard it as practice. But if I was going to offer this as a service instead of traditional albums I would very definitely factor it in as a legitimate cost.

[jenacolson]

We design our own albums (although so far we stick with the traditional mat method). We thought about leaving it up to the album company to design it, but decided that we'd do it on our own because a) I love doing stuff like that and anything that gives me an excuse to be creative is fine by me, b) it was more cost-effective for us, even counting for my time designing and c) we only do a handful of weddings a year, so we have the time to do it.

 

I'd say that if the prices are "a little high" for Leather Craftsman, but "you do get what you pay for" and it will save you time, go with that. The amount of business you bring in depends heavily on the number of happy clients you have. A poorly designed book doesn't make for happy clients. And if you do decide to design the album on your own, charge for your time by upping the cost of an album in your packages.

[john_murphy1]

I've recently been forced into doing album design. After I shot a friend's wedding for free, my wife informed me that it just wouldn't be right to just hand them a bunch of photos on CD and expect them to do the rest. Thus, it began.</p>

After checking out a couple books: one by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1584280980/sr=8-1/qid=1142223492/ref=sr_1_1/103-4352102-7117465?%5Fencoding=UTF8">Bob Coates</a> and another by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976664607/sr=8-2/qid=1142223492/ref=sr_1_2/103-4352102-7117465?%5Fencoding=UTF8">Kathy Woodford</a>, we decided that Photoshop would be adequate to accomplish the task. It provides the ability to layout multiple images on a page and vary the opacity of layers to provide the "ghosted" look to some of the images. It even lets you insert some rudimentary text. Looking back, the task wasn't so bad, and I'm glad we've learned how to do it.</a>

By the way, if you want to layout multiple pages in the same file, you need InDesign which is part of the Adobe Premium Suite package. So far, we have gotten by with just Photoshop, printing each page as a separate file.

[stacy]

I design mine Jennifer. It's not too bad until several people want theirs done at once, but I know if I sent it off I wouldn't like it anyway...so there's the dilemma I guess :)

[jgrim8]

Yeah, I think I'm going to try it myself.(I didn't go to art school for nothing...haha) Plus, I'm very picky too. I guess if I get too many to do at a time, I could send some in and see. Thanks!

[kerry_murphy1]

Hi all,

 

My name is Kerry-- I used to design bridal magazine layouts and now I design wedding albums full time. check out my site here: www.everafterbook.com.

 

I've worked with photographers for a long time and would love to help you if you don't have the time or just plain aren't interested in doing coffee table books.

 

I offer my books to phototographers at a wholesale price.

 

All the best, Kerry