Tims Wedding Album Design Tutorial

The example album in the first post is fairly typical of what I still do. I'd say my latest albums are simpler these days. One of my recent sample albums is available here.

Very generous of you--thanks a lot. I'll have a look.

Thanks for the excellent write up, Tim.

I'd like to add a couple of thoughts that will be evident for the pros, but might be of help for the beginners.

Don't have people looking off the edge of page. A photo on the left of edge of the page looking off to the viewers left will be disconcerting to view. Our eyes tend to go where their eyes are looking. Have them looking toward the fold or at the very least looking at another photo on the page. This coincides also with how we read a page. Look over the layout as if you are reading the story (which really you are, just in photos). Does it make sense?

Odd numbers play nicer with our brain. A page with three photos will usually tend to be more aesthetically pleasing that two or four.

Obviously, as stated with other guidelines, these are not hard and fast rules.

I agree with the not having people look toward the edges of the pages. However I disagree about the odd numbers - most of my pages have even numbers of photos, or just one photo. This relates slightly to my points about symmetry and balance, but not strongly, as you can have symmetrical balanced pages with 3 images. I do have some pages with odd numbers of images, just not a huge number. I think this point is personal taste.

Example here - an older one, but representative of my work.

Tim,
I agree that it doesn't have to be odd numbers. "Rules" are made to be broken. I was referring to the "rule of odds" that is often used in composition and design. I'm not a wordsmith so perhaps this will help explain it just a bit. http://photo.stackexch​ange.com …/what-is-the-rule-of-odds

Your pages with four on one side and a larger on the other work well. And even the ones with two sets of four provide nice symmetry. My personal preference would steer away from the pages with one photo on each side. I mean no offense though. You are lightyears ahead of me in all aspects.

One photo per side is a good way to feature the couples favorite images. Sometimes I put one really strong photo on the right hand page and leave the left page completely blank.

NewCreation wrote in post #16859401
"Rules" are made to be broken.

I break them all with my designing. White space is a dirty word in my world

Without white space albums look cheap to me, like someone can't afford more pages so they have to stuff in as much as you can on each page. Each to their own though.

tim wrote in post #16859741
Without white space albums look cheap to me, like someone can't afford more pages so they have to stuff in as much as you can on each page. Each to their own though.

I don't charge per page though... 70-80 pages was my standard size for over 6 years. If I need an extra few pages for the design I just add them and don't charge.

I charge per page, seems the easiest way to do it.

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #16859752
I don't charge per page though... 70-80 pages was my standard size for over 6 years. If I need an extra few pages for the design I just add them and don't charge.

Wow! 70-80 pages and not a fan of white space. That's a lot of photos - and work!

NewCreation wrote in post #16859925
Wow! 70-80 pages and not a fan of white space.That's a lot of photos - and work!

150-250 photos per album. Examples can be found on my website.

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #16860000
150-250 photos per album. Examples can be found on my website.

Those are very nice albums. What do you use to lay them out?

NewCreation wrote in post #16860054
Those are very nice albums. What do you use to lay them out?

Thanks. InDesign. No templates page layouts. All bespoke.