Entries Tagged as 'Design Tips'

Design Tips: The Importance of Color

When you are a photographer who is thinking about using printed photo books but you’re feeling a little bit stuck, there may be some challenges that leave you looking for design tips that will help you to get started. One of the most important design tips to put to work when you are creating printed photo books is to think about color.

Color is important in photography - and not just when it comes to looking into the way that skin tones are presented and in making sure that the image has that certain pop. When you’re going to the next level and you’ve started to think about photo books - whether you are designing for your clients or you’re thinking about using photo books as a marketing tool.

If you don’t already have a color wheel that will help you to determine the best way to mesh images in your printed photo books, you’re going to want to pick one up (or at least check one out online). If you’re putting together a page within the photo book, you’re going to want to think about color when you’re choosing images - even if it’s just to consider using both color shots and black and whites.

Design Tips: Using Photo Books to Explore the World

Some of the reasons why professional photographers turn to printed photo books is the inspiration of others:

In an effort to promote photography, the release of his new book, and, indirectly, the release of the latest release of Adobe Lightroom, author, publisher, and all around nice guy Scott Kelby is hosting the first ever Worldwide Photo Walk.

Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk will take place in two weeks on August 23, 2008 and is happening in over 200 cities around the globe. Covering six continents and twenty-four time zones, photographers will be hooking up for a free, social photography event to take pictures, meet new people, get a little exercise, and have an excuse to do what they like doing best.

If you’re looking to get involved in a similar projects, you’ll find that there are a number of photo book design tips that you will want to keep in mind:

  • When you’re designing a printed photo book, you’ll find that you are able to look at all of the photos from the event to choose the ones that fit the best.
  • When you know that you are going to be designing a printed photo book, you’ll want to think about the shots that you take well before you start sorting through, editing and doing post production work
  • When you are going to be designing printed photo books after an event with other photographers, you may want to think about using some of the other shots taken by the group - and, of course, if you do, there will be additional design elements that you’ll want to consider

Simply put, when you are going to be designing printed photo books - whether or not the shots your taking have been taken in an organized function, an event or even just a chance to get out with your camera to explore the world.

Design Tips: Hire a Pro When You Need a Photo Book Designed Perfectly

There are plenty of photographers out there who want to be sure that they are able to use and get a lot out of printed photo books within their businesses. Of those, what you are likely to discover just as quickly, many photographers are constantly on the lookout for great design tips because they don’t feel that they have the confidence or experience to simply create the ideal photo book.

Whether you are looking for design tips for your first printed photo book or you are looking for suggestions because the first book that you created didn’t quite meet your expectations, what you will find is that sometimes the best design tip is the one that reminds you that you don’t need to do all of the work yourself.

When you want to be sure that all of the best photo book design tips are used in your photo books - but you also want to be sure that the book that you design doesn’t look like you just followed a list of design tips - the best thing that you can do is to hire a pro. When you’re working with someone who designs photo books as a part of their career - or, more importantly, as the foundation of their career - you will find that you can get the high quality photo books that you’re looking for without the stress of designing and laying them out yourself.

By taking the time to have a pro design your photo books, you’ll find that you’re able to benefit in a number of ways; most importantly, you will find that there is a lot less stress that you need to deal with while growing your business and giving your clients everything that they are looking for.

Design Tip: Draw on Your Other Marketing Materials

When you’re designing printed photo books for your business - whether you are using them in place of a portfolio, to compliment a gallery showing or for your clients as a way for them to have their prints in what feels like a more meaningful way - one of the best tips that you can receive is simple: when you’ve been working with a great design stick with it.

If you love the design of your other marketing materials and are planning on marketing yourself with printed photo books, shouldn’t you be making an effort to keep the theme consistent? Even if you choose a complimentary color for the cover of your photo book, you can be sure that you’re maintaining some design consistency; the same is true if you choose the same fonts that you use on your website and print marketing materials throughout your printed photo books.

Of course, there are bound to be some differences between your marketing materials and the printed photo books that you design for your clients. Even if it’s something subtle - like the way you reference yourself as a photographer, there are ways of focusing on the big picture.

Everything that you do within your photography business contributes to the ways in which you market yourself; be sure that you are bringing that design into printed photo books - regardless of how subtly - and you will be able to stay on top of it.

Design Tips: Choosing a Theme for Your Photo Book

Designers will give you one tip more than any other: choose your theme. This is a great design tip for those who are getting ready to design a printed photo book to showcase their work.

When you set out to design a photo book, you’ll want to think about what your theme is.

If you’re a wedding photographer who is using photo books as an option for your clients, the theme of your photo book is likely going to be based on the theme of the wedding: stylish and modern, classic, based on a movie theme or holiday. If you’re going to be using a photo book for marketing your work, you’ll want to look at what message you’re trying to send. If you’re collecting travel photos into a book, you’ll want to consider a theme based on the place - using colors that are related to the place - or the shots you’re using - if you’ve taken underwater photos during your travels, you’ll look towards a theme based on water or coral.

Once you have a theme for the book you are designing, you’ll find that it’s far easier to choose your shots and organize your work.

Photo Book Design Tips: Organize by Theme First

When you set out to design a photo book, you’re going to want to make sure that you choose the right book for the project. The best way to do that it to consider the theme of the photos that you’re going to use.

Once you know the subject of your photo book, the design process really starts taking off. You’ll know the general size of your album and the number of pages you’re going to include.

You’ll choose the photos and then figure out the best layout - whether you’ll spread a shot across two pages, tier or layer multiple photos on a page. You’ll choose the book’s cover and end pages once everything else starts coming together.

But if you just don’t feel up to designing your own photo book, you don’t have to give up the idea of having one: the best course is to take advantage of design services: let a pro help you put your first photo book together.

The first photo book you design is always going to be the most challenging; get the help you need to set it up, and you’ll find that additional albums are far easier to compile.

Not Sure of How to Design Your Photo Book?

When you spend some time on some message boards, you’re likely to find that there are photographers and there are designers. That doesn’t mean there’s not some cross-over: plenty of designers who struggle to find the right photos for their projects start capturing shots themselves.

When your photography work focuses on portraits, or events or weddings, you may be exceptional at framing shots and capturing a moment in time. Maybe you’ve heard about using printed photo books to market your work, and you believe that using them would help you to reach your goals, but you’re worried about your design skills.

Not sure what you can do to design a photo book? Not sure that you’re really up to the challenge of creating the right layout or cropping your photos ? Worried that it means you won’t be able to take advantage of photo books as a result?

Don’t be. Design services are available that will help you create the perfect project: a photo book that captures everything just as you hoped it would.

How Do You Put Design Tips to Work?

Visit just about any photographers’ forum and you’re going to find more than a handful of designers who are lurking and posting, offering some suggestions about getting more out of your photos and about what kinds of shots are really sought out for use in product marketing and web design.

Reading these posts doesn’t always seem important to some photographers: they see that they are there to take the photos and it’s up to the designers to make something out of them. That opinion can make sense - especially to a lot of the photographers who participate in the microstock industry - but before you dismiss them, think about this: when designers aren’t getting the photos that they need from photographers, they go out and get themselves a camera to capture the shots they need, creating more competition for the photographers.

Rather than just dismissing design tips - even if you are quite content to be a photographer - why not look at ways that you can put the suggestions to work for you?

Think about it: designers create portfolio books to present their skills to businesses, why not follow their design tips and use a printed photo book to show off your work to your current and prospective clients?

Design tips can give you a sense of what layouts are most affective, give you a feel for how you should be marketing your work and can help you to show your clients all that you’re capable of. Why let the designers have all the fun?