Quick sample album critique

[tim]

Before I send the album to be made I'd be interested in critique of the layout - NOT the images please. Constructive feedback is welcome, good or bad. The album will be a Queensberry press album, 14x10" soft velvety leather bound overlay album with pearl metallic paper printed by inkjet I think.

My aims: simplicity, consistency, balance. Show the images, not the design. I want to tell the story of the day, but that's less critical for samples than for couples albums.

See the album here - it'll be taken down in 24 hours.

Layout numbers (eg 1/22) are at the bottom of each opening. Please use 2R to describe the second layout, right hand side, or just 2.

[awad]

looks good. I'd probably change up one of the spreads from 13-16 so the three spreads aren't mirroring each other.

another thing i would change up (not on this album as it'd be too much work) would be to reduce the amount of space in between the photos when you have those grids and make the photos bigger. That's just nitpicking though.

Overall, I think you've nailed what you set out to do. Solid.

[tim]

Thanks awad. I know they kindof mirror, but I didn't mind the mirror/swapping idea. Alternately they could all be 8x12" prints. Thoughts?

[Peacefield]

The images aren't coming up for me.

[scorpio_e]

Nice clean layout. I like it. Personally I would not change anything.

[Thomas Campbell]

Nice and clean. I've had a lot of customers unhappy with negative space in albums - they feel gypped. I think your negative space looks very nice and clean. I'm a fan.

[PeaceFire]

I like it! I would either add more spreads to the ceremony pictures or take a few out as those pages get a little busy compared to the rest and feel a bit out of place because of that. My album style is very similar to yours in that I only include a couple of images per page and leave a lot of open space. I love that look but it does make it hard to include everything without adding more spreads. But in this case, I think I'd prefer more spreads with fewer images (from a client perspective anyway).

Oh, also, is your album layflat? I ask because I'm not a fan of how small the images are on page 17/22. You could easily make them all the same size and have them be a spread. Personally I'd also throw in at least one full page spread with those images, but that's also a personal preference.

[nathancarter]

I like the layouts, nice storytelling.

4L just doesn't feel "balanced" too me. Too heavy on the left-hand side, I think. For the most part, I like your use of negative space but in this one it feels like the dress is falling off the page. How about putting it about 2/3 of the way to the left edge instead of right on the left edge? Or put the dress in the center, and frame it on the left-and-right with two smaller, complementary images in portrait orientation.

The same negative space on 20L works, but on 4L just doesn't do it for me. 17L works too, can't quite put my finger on why - maybe just because it's a wider image.

Not a fan of the tiny image on 21L, I think it could stand to be 50%-100% larger and still give that "Fin." feeling.


Those yellow socks

[tim]

Robert - it's hosted by Queensberry, so that's strange.

Peace - yes it's lay flat, an album not a book. I deliberately made the images small on those pages for effect, to make the main one look bigger on the first and just because I wanted to on the last. I'll reconsider the last page though. In the couples album, a QB duo, the last page was all black and the edges were faded in the photo so it blended in.

Nathan, thanks for the comments on balance, my girlfriend said the same thing about the dress page. I'll ponder it when I'm back at the design machine later on.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and comments

[tim]

The couples main album came back today, and after looking at that I agree with everything Nathan Carter said. I'll make the dress wider, closer to the center, and I'll make the final image larger too