I will most likely begin my ordering my most effective archival images in chronological order beginning from when my parents were teenagers, to showing them meeting, through to marriage, having children and eventually separation. I may also include some montages I created in this too, if I feel it fits in with the rest of the selection to make the book flow easily.
I began my photo book by placing an image as my mum as a child, and an image I took of her hometown. I left a blank double page spread and repeated this with an image as my dad as a young teenager, with an image of his hometown. This represents the beginning of their story, and gives some background context to the story.I then went on to separate it further as I felt the book didn’t flow well with a landscape and archival portrait directly opposite each other.I then used a photograph of my dad’s Jersey identity card, to represent a shift in time to him moving to Jersey. Next to that I placed 2 images of my parents in their late teens/20s to represent them meeting. Next is an image of their marriage certificate, and a few images from their wedding. Then there’s a blank double page spread to show a shift in time, and after that I placed an image of my brother’s baby wristband and an archival image of him with my parents to represent his birth.I then went onto show a few images with him and my dad when he was younger, right next to a current image of them. I then inserted a double page spread to represent a slight shift in time, and placed an image of my birth wristband and an image of my family the day I was born, which represents me being born. I then placed the photo montage I made of me and my mother to show how she suffered from mental illnesses after my birth. After that I placed some images of me and my family, and me and my brother on the next 2 pages.The double page spread represents a different point in the narrative, followed by an image of my parents around 5 years ago just before their divorce in black and white to show how they’re no longer together.On the page after that there is an image of a document showing how I live with my father.
2nd Layout:
For my second layout I made the landscape images a double page spread as I thought they’d look better that way, then I made the first 2 archival image full bleed. I then removed the blank double page spread before the marriage certificate image, as I thought that image would be more representative of this event.
3rd layout:
On page 8-9 I changed the image that shows my dad’s hometown as I thought his image looked better with the image of my mum’s hometown. I then placed the portrait of my brother and dad on a different page as they did not look very good next to each other. I then added my essay to the end of the book.
Deciding on my image for p8-9 to represent my dad’s hometown
4th layout:
I removed a blank double page spread after the 1st landscape, and placed the image of the registration card on a single page rather than on a double page. I then removed an image on page 37 as I felt they didn’t go very well together. I then made the image of the document on page 41 full bleed rather than cropped so it is more obvious it is a document.
5th layout:
I removed the image of the marriage certificate as I thought it made the book a[[ear too packed, and the wedding images were self explanatory, and didn’t need a document for context. Towards the end i added some pages with a black background to further convey their separation.
6th layout:
On page 8 I made the document slightly smaller, on the middle of the page as I thought it would look better since the baby wristbands were also placed in a similar way and would make my photo book look more uniform. I also changed pages 16 and 17 to experiment what would look better. on page 35, I then added a different archival image of me and my brother. on page 40 I also made the letter slightly smaller like I did with the registration card at the beginning.
current Final layout:
By this point, I’m quite happy with the layout except for page 16-17, and page 23-25 so I experimented with another layout.
comparing images to decide on the image for p17 to show their wedding.
Deciding on image for p25, and comparing to see which one would best match the archival iamge.
The layout above is my current final layout. I plan on adding some quotes on some of the blank pages to add more context to images. I will also edit the image on 38-39 to further convey their separation.
Front/back cover:
I created this montage as a front and back cover. I layered some important family images using photoshop as I think it encompasses the whole “feel” and mood of my photo book, which is useful as it gives an insight into what the book is about.
One thought on “Photo book design process”
Missing blog post:
Final book layout + evaluation + online link to blurb book
Missing blog post:
Final book layout + evaluation + online link to blurb book