Camera Cards & Coffee Tables

What do camera cards and coffee tables have in common? They both hold the pictures of our lives; first in obscure, invisible digits, then on the pages of an elegant, colorful coffee table style book. If you are reading this blog, you are probably in the process of creating just such a masterpiece, or perhaps, like me, you are in the business of helping others tell their stories in the form of a beautiful book. Either way, this blog post is for you. While I am writing this specifically for the benefit of my fellow book designers, if you are a do-it-yourselfer considering getting a little help, this will give you an idea of what to expect.

We fancy ourselves as book designers. But in fact, the design of a book is perhaps the easiest part of getting a photo book from idea to print. Image selection and curation, the organization of hundreds or thousands of items, work-flow procedures, and file management all figure in. But I believe that what is at the heart of creating a successful one-of-a-kind, personalized book is simply listening to your client. Hearing your client. Relating to them. Sharing in their vision. Making their project your own.

This may take a little time, but before putting pencil to paper (or pictures to pages) you need to know where you’re going. I call this the discovery stage. It takes the form of discussing the purpose of the book, the goals and expectations associated with it, and getting to the story behind the story. Only then can you intelligently advise your client and direct the design process. Yet, this is still not the time to start laying out the book. It is time to create myriad options for consideration. These will derive from further discussions about your client’s preferences in style and tone; how the book should look and feel. Does the client have an established brand that should be honored? This is the concepting stage.

In concepting, I will take a series of pages, a section, or a chapter, and apply various ideas, techniques, and design attributes to the same set of pages. These will be presented in PDF format, always in facing pages, to give the best approximation of how the pages would look in print. This is never a pick one and we’re done process, it is always open ended. The real purpose is to engage your client at a deeper level, encouraging them to consider details they hadn’t thought about. I want them to make decisions for me. We’ll take what they like and toss what they don’t, refining it down to a much smaller number of options. Now it is very likely they will pick one and you can move ahead.

Standards and Guidelines come next. You’ll want to create pages with a variety of layouts, but with many uniting common threads. Guidelines are recorded in a series of master spreads, to accommodate various combinations of images, all tied to the proper aspect ratio for the images at hand. (I’m working in InDesign, CS6 almost exclusively, by the way). Standards are tightly locked down attributes that bring cohesion and flow throughout the volume(s). These will be defined in the Styles menus – font, style, size and color for every application, such as headlines, body copy and captions, and object styles such as strokes and shadows for images. This is an in-house exercise. These are the tools that will expedite your layout process while ensuring adherence to the decisions made earlier.

Now your Layout stage is actually greatly automated. You’ll be surprised at how many pages an hour will start rolling out. All the prep work pays off even in a small book. When you get into several hundred pages, the efficiencies really increase, providing more profit for you and more savings for your client. Also, it happens to be really fun to get a client’s reaction when you present them with the whole book, all laid out in just a few short days.

And now the Cover. It seems counter intuitive to do the front of the book last. But it is the most important piece, so I want to be as familiar as possible with the entire story. All along, it is on my mind, of course. I’m thinking about images, backgrounds, fonts, etc. But by this stage, the cover usually falls into place, almost effortlessly. Did I say usually? Again, several options are shown before a decision is expected.

Revisions. I have had a scary number of projects with no revisions at this stage. I’m thinking, OK what have we missed here? When that happens, and also when just a few details need adjusting, I encourage the client to take a second look. And, of course, I always keep making new proofs of everything until every detail is fixed. When you ‘go to press’ you want to have a copy of exactly what your client has okayed.

From my experience, the process I’ve described here will result in a happy customer, often in a Very Happy customer. And after all, isn’t that what it’s all about?

Thank you to Guest Contributor, William Hoard, who wrote this wonderful post. William Hoard’s career in the Graphic Arts industry spans more than forty years, beginning with a Bachelor of Science degree in Printing Technology and Management from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California. It includes management, business development and creative support services, in the realms of offset printing, prepress and more recently, digital printing.  

His focus is on books; specifically top quality, image-rich, one-of-a-kind volumes for families, photographers, artists, travelers, and special interest groups with a story to tell. Blurb has become an integral component in the Lookbook Press work-flow for many clients. The design and preproduction services provided by Lookbook Press are perfectly complemented by Blurb’s excellent book production facilities. Together they create the perfect environment for anyone wishing to take their story from the camera card to the coffee table.