I'm trying to make a sample album for myself, and wanted to get some opinions before I consider having it printed. I tried to keep the design simple and work with sequential shots, hopefully to give the story a sense of motion. How did I do?

Click!

p.s. I'm using showit web in demo mode in this presentation. Hopefully that's kosher, if not I'll just post the images.

I like. Simple, clean, works well.

I like it - except for page 7. The borders (black on one side, and the heavy light lines on the other) don't work together very well.

Other than that - great!

Hey Phil,
Great job for your first time! Simple and clean is good, but be ready to take it up a notch. You don't want just 'good' In order to get more clients, you want 'Wow!' Just for fun check out the albums at http://tommycolbert.com He is a true master of album design for really high end clients.
Stuart

Really? I went to that link and wasn't impressed at all. His style is dated and pretty cheezy. I'm not into it, and no offense to that guy.. but.. he's definitely not a master of album design.

hi Phil,

i like it - keep it simple! i'm not sure about the first page - you may want a photo of the couple.

i know you want to keep it in 'order', but i don't lead with the groom getting ready - just my preference.

i like to keep a sense of consistency with borders. just a suggestion - but, choose A border style and stick with it through out. you'll feel like you need to switch it up by the 5th or 6th spread, but resist!!! all the different borders and effects start to take over - not the goal.

i'm going to presume that the first and last pages are only one side, not full spreads (or else you are cutting people in half across the gutter.)

everyone has different ideas about what looks best. i like clean, simple designs that showcase the photographs and the couple. some people prefer a 'scrapbook look' and some people want to throw all their 'tricks' and photoshop skilz at a book. i guess it's important to develop a style that you like and your clients will be drawn to it, like your photographs. your style should compliment your photography.

Thanks for the feedback Robin (I was hoping you'd chime in since album design is definitely your thing )! You're correct, the first and last pages are one side (it'll be an asuka). The simple design is definitely going to be my philosophy going forward. The only inconsistency I'm noticing is on page 7/11, as pointed out above; I'll probably make the right hand side black with the same thin white borders I use throughout. And page 3, I had originally designed it without the black band and I'll probably remove that so that all the white background pages are the same. But simple design will definitely remain my ongoing philosophy.

Anyway, I'm excited that I'll finally have an album of my own work to show potential clients, instead of just showing manufacturer samples (which in some ways I think hurt me in terms of securing a couple of bookings).

You could also sift through the Album Design threads here on OSP and get some inspiration - Chris Humphreys has some GREAT stuff... he's definitely more on the master side of Album design.