Designing the Perfect Photo Album
When the team at
Nations Photo Lab asked me to review their brand new high-end photo album I jumped at the opportunity! The entire Ashe Design team has been looking at a lot of printed products from labs and printers all across the county and this was an opportunity for me to put one of our new designs into a beautiful high end album!
Before I get into the quality of the album itself, let me first say that there is a huge difference between photo books and albums. We are guilty of throwing the term around interchangeably at Ashe Design, but the
Album 99 from NPL is beautiful and it's perfect for all kinds of special occasions. Keep in mind, albums aren't right for every customer or every photo shoot, but I think the new Album 99, might lend itself to more than being a wedding album. I think this would be great for seniors, engagements, anniversaries and maybe even some special family sessions! (Plus, it would make a beautiful wedding album!) [caption id="attachment_3390" align="alignright" width="600"]
See the Album 99 next to a canvas-covered photo book of the same size.[/caption]
The Photo Book Template
I obviously wanted to use an Ashe Design template in my sample album. Thinking along the vein of a wedding album, I landed on our new
Simply Worded Love 10x10 Photo Book design, which I customized with images from and engagement session shot by
Artistic Images, Portraits by Elizabeth. The template pages worked perfectly -- no resizing required. I did have to make slight modifications to the cover because it's so much bigger than a photo book cover (see the comparison). I
downloaded the sample cover template (click on design tips) from the Nations Photo Lab website and customized the Ashe Design template accordingly. Since they were slight modifications they didn't effect the design elements. In total I probably invested a little less than 1 hour putting together all 20 pages and the cover design. Once that's done, you simply upload the flat files to either of the Nations Photo Lab ordering systems (online or ROES).
The Finished Product
My finished album arrived in less than a week. Inside the shipping box I found my album packed in a sturdy black cardboard box.
(Because I'm always thinking about marketing, I would ideally add a branded studio sticker to the box and possibly include an accent like a ribbon if that ties into your brand.) Inside my new album was carefully wrapped up. I unwrapped it to find a beautifully crafted photo album. My
Album 99 came with the thin (thinner than a dime) photo pages, which are, for the record, the thickest thin pages I've ever seen! The pages are sturdy and durable. What I really loved is, since they aren't bend-able, like paper pages in a photo book, they lay flat and you can see the entire design on each page! This particular design didn't have any spreads, but those would be a beautiful option in this album! I found the pages to be high-quality, heavy, durable, basically indestructible!
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