Hi Folks,

Ok, first off I need to say this is my very 1st album design...ever! I've been waffling a bit over albums and finally took the plunge. I purchased Kevin Swan's video and it was amazingly helpful. Thanks Kevin!

Anyways take a look and let me know what you think. I have the images on my site in a slideshow format. The design is incomplete but there enough there (22 spreads) that you'll get the idea.

I'm not real crazy about the "pictures floating on a page" kind of look so the look I'm after is a magazine type of layout.

I'm very curious to see what people think of it. Please critique it. I have thick skin so feel free to be open and honest. I didn't expect to create a masterpiece on my 1st try so take a look and let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

http://www.steadfastdesigns.com/gallery/2442908

Lou,

That's rockin', man! I'd never guess it was your first-ever design. I'm thrilled the video was able to help you out. I like the magazine style layout--very clean. I look forward to your next album.

K

Well thanks Kevin. Again, your tutorial really helped me jump in to InDesign with confidence. I try to use it everyday now so I can stay fresh with it.

I know the 1st page poem needs some work. It was in their program so it really resonated with the bride. I plan on using a more elegant font for that. I would also like to add a personal intro page of some type with text. An image of the bride and and groom with the location and date. This is the oldest couple I've ever worked with so they are a bit more conservative than my normal client. So I had to tailor the design that way. I wanted to get funkier but it wouldn't have flown with them.

I'll be updating the design with additional spreads in the next couple of days.

Does anybody else have any comments? I see a number views on this post but only one comment.

Thanks folks!

Super clean, Lou. I bet InDesign becomes the no. 1 album designing software because of Kev's tutorial.

Hey, you're in Rochester! I'm from Olean, NY. Small world.

I love it. I think albums are the way to go...you did a great job.

the first thing that jumped out at me was there were only two b/w's out of 100+ shots. It felt like I 'ran into them' rather than helping with the flow. it seems there should be more of them or none at all.

my .02
(keep the change you filthy animal)

(can you believe that film is over 16 years old???)

Hey Nate!

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Yeah I hear ya on the black and white. I had a bunch of BW shots in their final set of images but they didn't really like them too much (they chose all color images for their proof album) so I only put a smattering of it in there. I wanted to put more in but I have a feeling they may reject them. I think you're right though. I may stick with a full color layout. I'll let you know what they say when I complete the album and here back from them.

Very, very nice Lou.

I've got Kev's tutorial DVD on my wish list...just holding off until I know I have time to download the InDesign trial and, the $ to eventually buy it. I can't wait. I've been doing the Fong AD method lately (after only doing matte style albums for years) but I'm ready to try something different.

Shane,

Yeah I really like InDesign. Once I watched the video it became very intuitive for me. It was a no-brainer purchase and I'm glad I did it.

Definitely a small world. There seems to be a lot of New Yorkers in OSP. That just makes it even more personal and enjoyable for me. OSP is great a community to plug in to. Neil Cowley mentioned this place to me. For that I'm grateful. If there's ever an OSP NY get together, that would be great!

I like the design. But I agree about the poem not looking right. What if you spread the poem throughout the book, make it like a story book -- a phrase of the poem here and there, so that if you read it as you turn the pages, you eventually get the whole thing?

Use a beautiful display font, not a standard serif or sans.

great start!

the thing that caught me was the repetition of the 1 large horizontal and 1 small horizontal underneith on 1 page, seemed like it was use quite a few times, maybe change a couple of those up slightly.

Wow! What a fantastic idea! Thank you so much for offering that up. Hmmm. Now how to do that while not redoing it all??? Hmmm. Food for thought.

Do you have any recommendations about fonts? There are thousands out there. Many of them look cheesy. Are there 3 or 4 you recommend? Which ones do you use most often? I have just basic fonts loaded with my PC.

"Beautiful display font" - is that a type of font? Or are you saying use a beautiful looking font? Sorry... I'm a very literal person - just making sure I know what you're saying.

Thanks!



Good suggestion. I kind of got stuck in a rut for a few pages. Yes, I'll have to go change those up a bit.

Thanks!

Well, I'm a Mac person, so I don't really know about PC fonts, but there are plenty of really great free font download sites. For the Mac, I use dafont.com, which has PC fonts too. Some display fonts I love: Jane Austen, Gabrielle, TCLescuelerascript, Worstveld, Santa Fe. Don't know of one called "Beautiful Looking Font" but that's a great name for a font!!!!!! I LOVE it!

To be totally honest, I thought the design had a template feel and not very personal. I don't care for tilted boxes. I think an album design should basically mimick how you might hang pictures on a wall. You wouldn't tilt them on the wall, or if you did, it would be ONCE IN A WHILE and not all over the place.

But, putting that poem throughout the book in a beautiful looking font (LOVE IT) and rethinking some of those tilts will give you a BEAUTIFUL LOOKING ALBUM, and for SURE it will be PERSONAL to that couple. It will surely show that you put a lot of thought into designing it for them.

Thanks for putting up with me and my rantings.
--Jules

What is the explanation for that guy walking down the aisle wearing an old ratty baseball cap and sneakers with a suit? It's driving me crazy. I have to know. (I'm very nosy.)

Well that was the bride's son and apparently he is balding, so she told me that he ALWAYS wears a hat - poor guy. He must be embarrassed by it.

I'm lucky that I have a head full of hair, but if it falls out - hey, that's part of life.

I was just made aware of dafont.com by a friend. They do have some good free fonts there.



I did everything free hand in InDesign. No templates. When you say "not very personal" what do you mean? How can I make it more personal?

And I'm not sure what you mean by tilted boxes. All my images "boxes" are fully straight. Some of the the pictures themselves were shot with a tilt. Is that what you're referring to?

(sulking) bastard (/sulking)

Oh horrors, Lou. I'm SO sorry! I was thinking of some other album post on here when I wrote that. Just looked at yours again. Actually, I think yours is very nice BECAUSE it has no tilting. PLEASE IGNORE ME!!

But you can easily work that poem into the design of those pages. Oh, and YOURS is nice and personal already. Again, please accept my sincere apology. So glad you didn't do the tilting thing!!!!

(I feel so stupid.)

Hey! I'm sure mine will be gone soon. I ain't getting any younger!

Not a problem. I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying. I really do appreciate you (and everybody else) for taking the time to comment. I hope to work on it some more this weekend. I'll repost when its done.

Lou,

Awesome first effort! You inspire me to go get Kevin's tutorial. I have InDesign but it's remained idle -- that will all change soon!

Couple ideas:
1/ I like the poem idea, bit with a twist. Post saying or favorite poems on various pages -- not all as I think that may be too busy - make them personal.. maybe favorite appropriate Scripture? Maybe tie them together with a theme the couple shares? I do like the "story theme" of using one poem though, maybe try both?

2/ Can you vary some of the gutter sizes? The thin lines all the same come off a little "sterile" to me.

3/ 12 & 13 have same layout. Swap left to right?

4/ 20 is driving me nuts with the candle lighting. Maybe offset? Something about having it centered and above feels "off" to me.

5/ Do the frames have to fill all the way to the edges? Maybe have a black border color?

Can't wait to see the finished product!

God bless,
Mike

Thanks Mike,

All I can say is the video definitely got me jump started and now I'm up and running.

Responses to you suggestions above:

1/ Yeah I really like th poem idea but I decided I'm too far in to implement it into this specific design. I would literally have to redo most of the album (which I'm really trying to avoid) . But I will definitely try that approach next time.

2/ I'll have to give that a shot. Thats's a good idea. Not sure how do-able that is for this design but I will keep that in mind.

3/ Good observation. I'll have to modify that. Thanks!

4/ I struggled with the candle light shot. I didn't want to favor the bride or groom as far as composition goes. And centering it wasn't preferred but the shot didn't allow for much else. I'll have to re-think that and see what I can come up with.

5/ I could put a black border but I wasn't sure how to consistently to do that. Once I learn InDesign more maybe I could try that. That would "frame" the shots nicely. But on the other hand I want to use every available inch of space for photos. Putting a black border around the outside of each page would steal 1-2 inches of work able "canvas". Tough call.

Thanks for your input! I really appreciate it!

Great job Lou, I really enjoyed viewing this album. Very clean and with nice/big images.
My DVD arrive over the weekend so I'm off to go learn...

Just posted my the 2nd version of album. This one is "complete" as it represents the entire event. Still not crazy about the frontpage though...

http://www.steadfastdesigns.com/gallery/2442908/