Three simple steps to your next family photo book

24 Feb Three simple steps to your next family photo book

If you followed the tips in our last blog, by March you’d already be two 12ths of the way done preparing for your next annual family photo book. It’s not too late to get started with those tips now… so be sure to check it out. *** Please note that as of December 2020 LEGACY OF LOVE is only available as an app***

There are several moving parts all needing to fit together to create an annual family photo book; photos, design software and journal entries. In this blog I will show you how I pull everything together to create our annual family photo book.

I sit down to create an annual family photo book each year in late January or early February (depending on how hectic the school holiday/back to school preparation is).  Because I have been managing my digital photos throughout the entire year (recap here) everything I need will be at my fingertips when it comes to design time.

As it is now nearly March 2020, let’s use my 2019 book creation as a case study.

Step 1 – Collect

Revisiting my digital photo hub (DPH) folders for each month in 2019, I copy the images I applied a 5 star favourite rating to a new project folder on my PC called “2019 book”.

Opening my legacy of love app I then copy each of my 12 journal entries into a new word document for editing.  *** Please note that as of December 2020 LEGACY OF LOVE is only available as an app***

Step 2 – Curate

I take some time to fine tune my journal notes adding details, descriptions, correcting grammar etc. I also like to even out the word count for each month so my design will balance evenly on each page of the photo book.

Once I am happy with my stories, I revisit the photo selection and make sure the images I’ve chosen adequately represent what I have written.  If needed I select extras from my digital photo hub (DPH) or I can delete excess from the project folder and not upload those at all. Read more about how I do some sums to determine how many photos to include in a book in this post.

Step 3 – Create

Design time! For this book I used a combination of CANVA and the layout options preloaded in the photo book software. I used Canva to ensure my monthly journal entries were uniform throughout the book. I created one journal template to suit a portrait photo and one to suit a landscape photo. This is simply a personal preference for balance and consistency in design.  I wanted each journal page to have the same amount of text on it from a visual point of view. You can just as easily type your text directly into a text box in your photo book software.

I was able to import the entire folder of photos from the project folder “2019 book” into the design software and then opt to sort them by date taken.  

Then I worked through month by month including my journal summary page from canva and photos from each month. I was able to determine approximately how many photos to add per page layout using the simple formula “Number of photos in my folder divided number of pages in my book” (I bought a voucher). In this case it was 276 divided by 60 = 4.6.  Using 4-5 photos per page as a guide helped keep me on track and made sure I didn’t run out of pages before the December images rolled around. 

As you can see because I had done most of the ‘work’ throughout the year this process was more about gathering everything into the one place and simply rearranging it.

If you are interested in this method and the importance of storytelling you can listen to my podcast interview on DIY Photo Organising here.

Are you inspired you to get creating? Let us know, we’d love to hear from you.

Post Script: I had to add this photo…..it was such a sweet surprise to come into the room and find my 9 year old daughter flicking through photo books with her slumber party guests. THIS is WHY we do it!