My first album design

Hello everybody,
I saw someone posted an album here earlier, and it inspired me to create my first album, and would love some critique.

http://albumexposure.c​om/RedTiePhotography/t​est-album

The album is the test album, password is test.

I could have edited the images more, but this was about design. I will use what I learn here to design another album soon.

Thank you for the help!

The album is very dark. I suggest you use white pages more often.
I'd also change some borders from the pictures. All straight borders gets boring after a while. Be creative!
When doing so you might want to add some shadows to the borders of the pictures as well to give it some dept.

Tip: Browse the internet for other examples and see what suits you best.
Here's a link to get you started:
http://www.ispwp.com …wedding-album-design.html

Good luck

Just my opinion... the first few pages are a little standard... Nothing really pops to grab my attention. I would do some full page spreads closer to the front of the album (page 2 or 3)

Also - on page 7 it looks like your bride might get cut into for the binding... Not sure what kind of album it would be, but if it's not one that will lay flat across the page, be careful of putting people near the middle.

Looks great for a first try!

Wow. Nice first album. However, it appears the wedding was on a boat? Perhaps I missed it, but I see no sweeping scene setters that tell us where we are. Maybe this is more a comment on the photography, but I want to see that beautiful setting!

collierportraits wrote in post #10737015
Wow. Nice first album. However, it appears the wedding was on a boat? Perhaps I missed it, but I see no sweeping scene setters that tell us where we are. Maybe this is more a comment on the photography, but I want to see that beautiful setting!

Nice call on that. I totally forgot to place that in there. I am sure i have a few shots of at plus the skyline, which would tell a better story.

emmaceleste wrote in post #10736900
Just my opinion... the first few pages are a little standard... Nothing really pops to grab my attention. I would do some full page spreads closer to the front of the album (page 2 or 3)

Also - on page 7 it looks like your bride might get cut into for the binding... Not sure what kind of album it would be, but if it's not one that will lay flat across the page, be careful of putting people near the middle.

Looks great for a first try!

Ok, that sounds like a great idea. I was getting used to the program and playing it safe before I started trying new things. I will try this on my next album.

I'm planning on using millers flush mount albums, so it should lay flat. When i print one hopefully I'll see how close i can go, and how close i can't. Thank you.

W1ck3D wrote in post #10733004
The album is very dark. I suggest you use white pages more often.
I'd also change some borders from the pictures. All straight borders gets boring after a while. Be creative!
When doing so you might want to add some shadows to the borders of the pictures as well to give it some dept.

Tip: Browse the internet for other examples and see what suits you best.
Here's a link to get you started:
http://www.ispwp.com …wedding-album-design.html

Good luck

Thank you, I'll look through those. I wasn't sure if I should mix white and black backgrounds, i was worried it would look inconsistent.

As for the straight borders, I like them so far, but I will look for other templates that give me more variety and see how I like those.

Thank you all, I will try to implement all of these ideas into my next album.

I have only done a few books myself, but this album with all black backgrounds seems a little too "heavy". We all know that photos seem to present well on a black background, but I like using white pages with a dark border around the photo to set it off. Sometime I will add a slight embellishment or ornament to the background (top and/or bottom, or corners, etc.)to keep it from getting too boring. White just seems so much more "wedding" to me.

I'll try that a white background with a black border if I can figure it out next time.

I'm going to give you some constructive critique, which you really, really need. Please take it as helpful and friendly advice from someone who's made the same mistakes, and learned from them.

Overall, it's really, really bad, very amateurish, probably on the same sort of level as my first album was 6-7 years ago. The processing isn't good, there's no flow, there's no symmetry, it's very dark rather than light and airy, and it uses overlays which are one of my most disliked album styles. It doesn't tell a story. Album design is hard, to start with. I wouldn't let this near the B&G at all, ever.

Here's some page by page critique:
1) The album starts with an image from the end of the night, which feels backward. I often use a nice portrait from the middle of the day, but this one feels too late. Also the mixed color temperatures and the underexposure in the image doesn't help it. My suggestion: use a different image, even a detail show.
2) There's no symmetry or flow, at all, plus that tilted image just looks wrong. The silhouette shot doesn't mix well with the others. It really tells me nothing about the people or the day. I suggest choosing different images, four on the left and one on the right, and to help the flow have the image on the right align with the top and bottom of the images on the left.
3) Mixed B&W and color rarely works. Images are underexposed. The triangle shape bothers me. See page 2 recommendations.
4) OMG. Why would you arrange images like that? Sometimes it can be done to make a page visually interesting, but there has to be some pattern or rhythm to it to achieve that. Start this page again.
6) The huge faded image shows NOTHING. Nothing interesting. The back of some dude's head, and a video camera. Mix of color & B&W. A dark, depressing page.
7) Why the poor alignment? Full page, full bleed, if you lose the minister that's tough.
8) Poor balance.
9) Make LHS image bigger so top and bottom align with RHS page.
10) You faded out the nice moment.
11) Lots of nothing photos, that mix dark and light together to form a visual jumble. Zoom the LHS image to avoid the wasted empty space.
12) The big cake image and small cake image together feels wrong to me, plus they run together in a confusing way.
14) Colors, alignment.
15) LHS image too cool. RHS image is a nothing image.
17) Nice image. Full page, full bleed.
18) Same image as page 1? Align it properly, process it properly.

Overall recommendations:
- Use white backgrounds.
- Use a thin keyline around the images (optional, personal taste).
- Aim for alignment, flow, symmetry.
- KISS (keep it simple, stupid).

Even if you've shown this to the B&G, redesign and show them a new version. Even if they say they love this, they'll love a new one even better.

Professionals who do a lot of albums are headed toward simple albums, featuring the images rather than making a pretty design that looks good. I'm back to using matted albums with white matts quite often, sometimes with a few pagemount pages or images (QB duo). Jerry Ghionis just did an album with one image per page, all square prints, it's a pretty nice album, you can see it here if you're a DWF member.

Regarding the photography, I think you shoot too tight. You need to add context to your images. Award winning or stunning images are almost never close crops, they're a nice scene, a nice pose, and a great moment. You don't really have any of those. Capture the emotion, if it's not there try to work out how to get them to produce it.

If you want to see a recent album design of mine, check this out. I'll keep the link/album up for a couple of days.

Thank you Tim, and I really appreciate it. I will really take this to heart, and it was the kind i needed.

Of course its ametureish, as its my first one and i know there is quite a bit of room to improve. Thats why I posted this.

The images will be better next album. Ive changed a lot since then, especially in processing. Images were shot tight as well because I was the second shooter. This helped me see what images I really needed from weddings to make s better flow to the album.

I haven't shown this to the bride and groom, and will not ever show them any copies. Again, I was a second and practicing my album making skills. Its a good thing too, because apparently I need a lot of practice.

Thank you again Tim, and hopefully my next one will be much better. Hopefully I can check out your link soon (I'm on vacation and my ipad doesn't like most photographers).

Happy I could help. Being a second shooter is a good reason you shot like that, and had limited control of lighting.

PM me a link to your next album thread, as I rarely come into this forum.

My link is iPad friendly

Can't see any pictures did you remove them from the thread?

Both mine and tims link are still active.