Why do you need a professional and experienced album design provider?

Well, most of the photographers out there are not even professional photographers. Sorry about that! We’ve seen a lot to say that. We have more than 15 years in this industry. Having a website and a business card that says a photographer doesn’t necessarily make one. This is half of the problem. The other half is that there are brilliant photographers in the industry, but they don’t have any knowledge and experience to design, layout, tell a story with images, and very important – to print!

90% of the photographers now use drag-and-drop software, which will do the layout job. No storytelling at all! Just populating empty pages with randomly spread images. Next, next, and finish! Print.

It is roughly the same process when you order from cheap online vendors.

Now you know the wrong way, so let us explain the right one.

Technical education

Every digital file photo is just a source of information. If you want a nice-looking and sharp print with vivid colours, using this image is not enough. Every printer or offset works with different profiles and settings. Different papers also have different profiles and instructions for the printer and the ink. Skipping monitor calibration and tons of extra technical knowledge. So, printing a non-optimized image for the specific printer and paper will deliver mediocre results. Well, if the client doesn’t have the chance to compare it with a professionally printed image, they can still like it, but this is another story.

This is about the technical stuff. Scratching the surface, of course.

Our wedding album-making workflow

Now to the designer’s part of album making. The goal of every album is to tell a story. The layout should lead the eye and provoke feelings. Every spread should reveal a unique story. The good album is like the good wine. Ageing makes it more attractive and desirable.

NOTE: When we speak about ageing, it’s very important to note that we always work with the world’s best providers, offering durability and longevity. If the client is “on budget”, we suggest the DIY option. The low-end online vendors offer a lot of disappointment in the long term. It’s a shame to open your album in 20 years and to realise that colours fade off, corners split apart, etc.

So, our wedding album workflow and what to expect by working with us:

1/ The very first page comes with a nice font introduction that usually comes from the client. It could be just “Our wedding” and date, a poem, a vow, etc. The second page on the right-hand side (still on the first spread) is either a romantic photo of the bride and groom or a close-up detail, like a wedding ring, wedding dress, etc.

2/ The last spread is again a photo of the bride and groom (whoever the event hero is) on the left page and our studio signature on the last page, the right one. The album starts and finishes with the couple. 90% of the cases.

3/ Every spread tells a certain story in chronological order. No overlapping! We don’t mix, let’s say, venue details plus the first dance, group shots with bridal preps, or ceremonies with dancing people. This is taboo! This rule guarantees certain feelings in the viewer years after the event. You look at the ceremony spread and discuss with your guests’ memories from this moment. Then you flip the page, and you remember the funny speech of the groomsman. Everybody was laughing at photos to complement the hero image of the groomsman. Then, the next spread, everybody crying, together with a hero emotional photo, etc. A good album is not just a book with images but rather a memento experience.

Occasionally, we have requests: “We’re on a budget and want to merge the pages”. We have to explain that merging the dancing page with another one is fine if the client can live with smaller photos, of course. However, merging one story with another is totally wrong from the designer’s point of view.

4/For Every spread we design, we pick a hero photo and make it full-page or larger than others. If there are a few photos that compete with each other, then we will exclude them and design accordingly.

5/ The album workflow is a step-by-step interactive dance with the client. We have a general step-by-step workflow section on this page that provides more details.

– We always design more pages than the agreed amount if the client provides a lot of photos and different stories. It is easier for us to offer more and let the client remove the excess than the opposite. It’s a great time saver, and guess what? 99% of our clients approve and love the extra pages. At this point, you have two options: A/ comment on the extra pages for deletion and pay nothing extra, or B/ approve the layout or amend it by adding or reducing extra pages and pay for the extra pages for £25 per page. Sometimes, upgrading the album size for a better design and avoiding the thumbnail look is reasonable.

– The proofing process goes in 2 stages. The first stage is design approval. The client receives a link to their digital online album, with the ability to click on a photo and comment on the desired changes, like replace with …, remove, add on another one, make it bigger, move it to another page, etc. Approve the whole page or mark for removal. After clicking on the finish button, we receive the clients’ comments and redesign according to the desired changes. The client has one free layout review.

– After layout approval, we start working on beauty retouching, body shaping, other improvements, colouration, sharpness, skin smoothing, etc. Followed by file optimisation for the specific printer and paper type. To save time, we don’t retouch all hundreds of images piece by piece. We export each spread and treat it as an individual image that contains the spread images. So we don’t provide retouched images afterwards; we only provide retouched spreads for the purpose of the album. This is why we don’t accept structural/layout amendments at this stage, as we have to start everything from scratch. Unless paid, of course.

– The next step is choosing the colour theme and covering/boxing material preferences. We offer hundreds of them to please everyone.

–  The next step before printing is to request the payment for extra pages/materials, etc.

– The album comes in 1-2 months. The client can’t hold tears of joy, and we’re over the moon for the great job that we deliver.

So, dear ladies and gentlemen, now you understand why our albums can’t compare to others. We always request that local clients come and visit us. From the moment they touch and feel our albums, they don’t go any further.