Will your wedding album last always and forever? Consider a solid traditional design for the look of ages.

For couples, there is a lot to consider when designing a wedding photo album. The easy stuff is whether the album quality made and printed on acid-free, archival paper. Just about any wedding photographer can provide a high-quality album. But what about a great design that outlasts changing fashion?

Have you ever seen a dated wedding album? Maybe your parents or a friends wedding album? Just a few bad choices can quickly can quickly ruin a wedding album. Photos stylized with too many actions or page layouts that are more about fashion than thoughtful design can “age” quickly. This is a problem that I see a lot. The following tips may help when working with your photographer to design your album:

The number one rule – Choose quality images thoughtfully. Concentrate on a good mix of candid and formal pictures. Choose images from before, during and after the ceremony. This will be tough, but it is the most important thing to do. Take your time and make sure the final images are your favorites. Listen to your photographer. Wedding photographers have to be good photo editors. Their input can be very helpful.

Give the finger to actions – Oh! This gets me fired up like nothing else. Photographers call them “actions”, but they are great way to ruin images. Actions are stylized “looks” applied to images in Photoshop. For example, an aged look, or polaroid, sepia or selective color. And selective color is the worst! My personal feeling is  quality photos do not need any actions. A good photo is good on its own merit. Certain actions can become quite fashionable. Even worse, stylized images fade from fashion really, really fast. Remember a few years ago when everyone wanted images with selective color (flowers in color and everything else in B&W)? Yeah, that is sooo 1992. Now the look is polaroid. What will it be next week? I don’t know, but your images will last forever if you go with straight-up color or B&W. Trust me, let the images stand on their own merit.

Page background – Damask patterns are the stylish thing right now. Before it was Tiffany blue and chocolate. Maybe next is plaid…er…gingham….er…something? Point being, like the photos themselves, watch out for highly-stylized page backgrounds. They too can cause your wedding album to look dated quickly. Classic black or white are timeless. A pencil-thin contrasting border around each photo is a great touch. It helps to define the edge of each photo. Otherwise, choose backgrounds carefully. I actually use some texture and patterns for backgrounds, like a really light paper or fabric texture. However, I suggest to clients that backgrounds be kept light, almost like white on white. Again, keeping close to the traditional.

Covers – Album covers are a little less important. You can’t go very wrong with the cover. Most wedding album providers offer a good selection of classic covers like real or simulated leather, printed images, metal or cloth. I like leather or the printed cover best. Cloth can stain if you are not careful. When it comes to leather, stick with black, white, chocolate, medium brown or red. Avoid teals, green, blue, and other chartreuse colors. For printed covers, go with white, black, a very understated pattern or a picture. The printed covers that I offer come in a opalescent white when left plain. Think of it as a fancy white. I like it with just a little text.

Layout – You want the pictures to be visible more than anything else. If your album is 10×10 or 12×12 inches, avoid having more than four photos per page. This will keep each photo nice and large. Also, seriously consider the square layout. I highly prefer this dimension for many reasons. When closed it looks nice and handles well. When open, you get a great wide layout that is not too wide. A horizontal layout like 12×9 is also nice, but not my favorite. It can be tough to do full spreads on such a wide layout. I generally avoid vertical because it feels too much like a magazine.

Each photo is nice and large when you keep to just a few images per page. Also consider the square album format for great handling and nice, wide spreads

Flush mount – Keep this term in mind. I said I would assume the book and paper quality were already taken care off. However, definitely choose a flush mount album binding. In essence, each page is individually print on a single sheet of paper. The pages are then mounted into the album spreading right across the seam. This gives you a great seamless look to each page. Another binding technique, Leporello, will give you the same look. In this case, every page is printed to one giant paper ribbon. The ribbon is then folded like an accordion and mounted into the binding. Again, you get a seamless binding. Both wedding album styles I offer are seamless, with the Handmade being Leporello and the Boutique being Flush Mount.

A Flush Mount or Leporello (above) binding allows an album to lay completely flat and allows images to spread right across the seam

Other tips for a good album design -

• Leave the first page and last page blank, like a book
• Look for an album with thick, heavy pages
• Avoid silver or gold gilding on page edges
• Layout some images right to the page edges, with others inset into the page

These tips should really help your wedding album remain timeless and stylish. With these ideas in mind, you can design an album with your photographer that looks great in fifty years. Personally, I work carefully with clients when designing their wedding album. The goal is to ensure the client gets what they want, while also considering good style.

See y'all soon,
Hunter