Photo book design tips from design experts
Photo book design tips from design experts
By Libby Jeffery, co-founder and Marketing Manager of Momento Pro
11 December, 2018
In this blog post we’ve collected design tips from local and international photo book creators, and some photo book design theory, to help you do your photographs justice. The focus is not on ‘commercially successful’ design but on design that is fit for the purpose of the book whether it be a personal photo project, a self published book, an artist book or other.
‘Complements’ by Michael Mahne- Lamb
Great layout and page design is not intuitive, a fact that has been proven by thousands of books that have passed through Momento’s print facility. We see many good designs but many would also benefit from using a few design fundamentals.
While photographers are more visually literate than most, the ability to compose within the frame of a photograph doesn’t always translate to composition within the frame of a double page spread, but if you want to create the most effective photo book, good design is critical. Depending on the purpose and budget for your book you can choose to design it yourself, or seek assistance from a professional. In either case, the design should always be driven by the purpose and intention of your book.
In this blog post we’ve collected design tips from local and international photo book creators, and some photo book design theory, to help you do your photographs justice. The focus is not on ‘commercially successful’ design but on design that is fit for the purpose of the book whether it be a personal photo project, a self published book, an artist book or other.
Design by you
Desktop publishing tools like InDesign, and template or drag-and-drop tool based software such as Momento Pro, have made it possible for anyone to layout books without needing to understand design theory or the printing process. While this has made it easier for photographers to self publish, it doesn’t always result in the best book design.
Design by a professional
If you want the best possible design, we suggest you take the advice of Bruno Ceschel from Self Publish Be Happy and, “find a designer,” because, as Jorg Colberg reinforces in Understanding Photo Books: The Form And Content Of The Photographic Book, “photobooks made with the involvement of a designer simply make for much better books.”
Collaboration with a designer who is expert in publication layout, who knows how to work with text and images, understands how to read photography, or better still, is a photographer too, is the ultimate photo book designer. While they can’t save bad photos, they can enhance the story that the photographs are trying to tell.