I like to use BLURB to print the books as they have a great range of sizes and options for the finished product. Depending on the budget, you can go from basic to top of the line including linen covers and sheer inserts.
The challenge when doing one of these books is keeping a uniform design concept throughout. If I'm doing a book from ONE EVENT (eg. a wedding, holiday, school highlights) then this is much easier to achieve. Here is an example of a recent book I did for a barmitzvah album. Doing a one-event book, can also be executed quite successfully by simply using the templates available in Blurb - although I like to create myown templates so that the pages don't all look the same!
However, I recently did a book for an 80 year old as a tribute to his life. I've decided to call this type of book a LifeAlbum. With these albums, it's much harder to create the uniformity of design, as I am given vintage photos, black and whites, documents, certificates, postcards, and all sorts of paraphernalia aside from photos, to include in the book. 80 years of photos and memorabilia is no easy task to incorporate into a book, but once it's done, it's such an amazing keepsake.
I like to design using Photoshop and PSElements as well as sometimes using the templates available in Blurb.
At the moment, I'm also designing a book for myself called my great big collection of family photos
This is an idea that came to me when I realised that although I have printed photos or albums of big events or holidays we've had over the last 7-10 years, there's not much photographic evidence of any life in between those events - other than a lot of images saved onto CD's! All the birthday parties, lost teeth, ballet concerts, school ceremonies, mother's day breakfasts etc. are nowhere to be found... until now! In my Big Book! I'm sure, once it's done, my family will be very chuffed to see themselves in pictures again - on the coffee table.
