Album Designer looking for advice.

[lauren_woehler]

Greetings!

 

I am not sure if this is an appropriate question on your forum, but I am going

to give it a try.

 

I am an album designer who has been working with one photographer primarily for

almost two years now. I am looking to branch out and gain some new clients (I am

not soliciting, just giving you some info about myself) I am in the process of

putting together a website and in the meantime I have been responding to ads on

craigslist and the like from photographers looking for album designers. I have

had a few bites, but nothing substantial. To be honest, I would love some

constructive criticism. As I am sure you all know it's very competitive out

there and family and friends aren't really good for this sort of thing.

 

Would anyone be willing to give me some honest critiques of a few albums that I

have done?

 

Here are a few links:

 

http://www.leoadesignstudio.com/gallery/sample_3/

 

http://www.leoadesignstudio.com/gallery/Sample_4/

 

http://www.leoadesignstudio.com/gallery/sample_1/

 

http://www.leoadesignstudio.com/gallery/sample_2/

 

I would also love some advice about pricing. As a graphic designer, I am

confident about what I should charge but album design seems to be another ball

of wax completely and it is hard to gage what is appropriate to charge without

alienating potential clients.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Lauren

[neilambrose]

<p>Hi Lauren. I think you'll find your designs are going to be better targeted at some

styles of work than others, and in some cultures better than others. For which

reason it's probably best to take feedback with a sense of context.</p>

 

<p>Speaking entirely personally (and honestly :-) ), I wouldn't be able to use any of

the designs that you've posted. They just don't work for me -- although of course

that doesn't mean they won't work for others. I find your layouts, colour schemes

and decorations a bit heavy handed and rather dated, likely to overpower the

photography rather than represent it. But my starting context may be different - I'm

in the UK, not the USA, and mostly have clients with a specific demographic -

primarily professional, educated, design-aware with specific tastes.</p>

 

<p>As a suggestion, have you see the auto albums that people can generate for

themselves using generic tools - e.g. Aperture, Book Smart, Page Gallery, etc? I

think as someone entering the market as an unknown, you're most likely to be

competing with these types of offerings. You can't compete on cost as they're

already very affordable, so whatever proposition you put together has to be

convincingly stronger - both on the supply side, as well as the design side.</p>

[morgan_leigh]

I considered doing the same thing, so I looked into designs & pricing quite a bit. I think your designs are great & what brides are looking for these days. I am also very active in a wedding forum so I see the photobook designs that are very popular. I am not a photographer, but a bride-to-be so I have a different perspective.

 

One thing I found is that you can not make as much profit doing the designs for photographers. There are very good companies that design a 20 page book for $300, so I think that would be about the max you could charge per book. If you are selling the books directly to the brides that have their digital negatives, you can make a much larger profit. Maybe $600-$700 profit for a flush mount book.

 

You would need to be able to make your designs to suit many of the different book binding companies to be competitve.

[bill_ashley2]

Lauren, I don't share Neil's opinion. Perhaps his is colored by his location, UK, and brides

there have different tastes.

But your designs look fine.....not exceptional, but good. They're more along the lines of what I

get from my album designer. Your designs reflect the tastes of my brides. That's the bottom

line after all, satisfying your clients.

I'd use you.

[rachel_peek]

Lauren, I have a degree in Visual Communications, and your album designs are exactly what photographers (US

photographers, apparently) are looking for. Your style is clean and balanced and shows off the photography--exactly

what a professional wedding album should look like.

 

From my own experience in designing albums for other photographers, pricing my services so that I was paid what I

was worth

while still being an attractive draw to other photographers was nearly impossible. I found most of the photographers

who'd inquire to be tightwads unwilling to pay what my time and talent was worth. When I was only charging $300-

350 per design up to 60

sides, I was bombarded with emails from photographers asking if I could work with their budget of $200 or $250

because if I would come down for them, they'd probably "use me a lot".

 

"Use me" is right. $200??? WTF. I found that very insulting. $350 was lower than I was comfortable with anyway,

since I easily charged $50/hour as a graphic artist. I was averaging 4-5 work days for very large albums, as I put a lot

of thought into my designs and did not just slap a bunch of pictures together.

 

Of course I'd respond to these budget photographers with a courteous no, and suggest that if they really liked my

work and needed my help but

couldn't foot the extra $100 bucks themselves, they could pass the expense along to their clients and increase their

album prices just enough to meet my fee. I

wouldn't hear from most after that. (pft! as if my time isn't valuable)

 

Tired of wasting time answering those kinds of emails, I raised my prices to $400 - $450 per design up to 60 sides, a

much more comfortable

number for me, to help weed out the budget photographers and target more high-end studios. But then I got

higher-end photographers asking me to work with budgets of only $300-$350 per design, still trying to low ball me,

even though it was obvious they were making thousands in profit from albums that they were charging $3000 to

$4000 for an album that only cost them around $600 to produce.

 

My next move was to raise my prices to $600 per design up to 60 sides, as I'd decided that I no longer wanted to

hear from photographers unless they were truly serious. I didn't get many bites after that, which suited me fine

because by then I had too many of my own studio's designs keeping me busy.

 

The funny thing is, I actually started to get more inquiries from brides who had their

digital negatives and needed assistance with their albums (either their photographers hadn't offered them an album,

or if they did, they weren't the kind of albums the brides wanted). So then I started offering brides print/bind services

in addition to

design services, and ended up doing several albums this way. It was fun, I felt good about helping brides who loved

the finished products, and I made what I felt I deserved to be earning. Plus, working directly with brides was much

more pleasant than working with other photographers. Believe it or not, the brides were less demanding.

 

If you have access to an album manufacturer, maybe targeting brides instead of photographers is something you

should consider. (Just make sure any brides that hire you have a "right to alter" in their

usage agreement, otherwise you're committing copyright infringement against the photographer.)

 

If you'd prefer to continue working with photographers, I'd suggest getting in as a designer for one or two other

studios and work with them exclusively instead of offering your services publicly to any photographer .

 

And if you do decide to offer your services to photographers publicly, keep in mind that you're competing with

hundreds of online

design studios who outsource to designers in India and similar places, and are able to charge only $200-300 for

album designs with huge page counts.

 

Obviously my opinions are based on my own experiences, and your experiences may be completely different. There

may be plenty of photographers out there willing to pay you well for your designs.