Coffee table album options for wedding and portraits
COFFEE TABLE ALBUMS
We really believe that seeing, touching and opening these albums is truly the best way to choose what you like best. But we understand that sometimes you're just shopping or want to get an idea of the options, so we've put together this blog with more information and photos on the most popular choices we have available!
METAL - gold, color and silver
Metal albums are one of the most popular because of their unique, elegant and sleek look. They are not as scratch resistant as the leather or crystal below, so just take extra care by not laying other books on top of your album. A custom made box to keep it in (shown below) is also an option. The metal comes in a silver or gold base, and can be a bold color or subtle image which may show more of the metal color.
Sample shown above: Top to bottom, color metal, gold metal, silver metal
Sample shown above: Gold metal with white leatherette spine (color options available for spine)
CLASSIC LEATHER, PREMIUM LEATHER & DICUT
Leather comes in a few options. We have regular leather, two options for premiums, as well as square and triangle dicut in the leather. There are different color options for each type of leather. If you're considering a leather upgrade, make an appointment to come see/feel/touch the differences! You will be pleasantly surprised by quality!
Sample shown above: Black classic leather with letter debossed (your names/date, not studio logo)
Sample shown above: Classic leather swatches, dicuts shown bottom of left page
Sample shown above: Premium leather swatches, dicuts shown bottom of left page
Sample shown above: Premium leather swatches, dicuts shown bottom of left page
CRYSTAL
A crystal cover is essentially a photographic print, overlaid with a high grade plexiglass. It's a great option if you want a detailed large image as your cover, as well as very scratch resistant. These also make great covers for portraits and family session albums.
Sample shown above: crystal covers with a color and a black and white image and black leatherette spine
HARD COVER IMAGE WRAP
Hard covers are the lowest priced, but still extremely durable and really fun. We can take any horizontal image and wrap it around the cover from front to back.
COUTURE MAGAZINE WITH RECYCLED PAPER
A couture magazine wedding album is an awesome trendy album that will fit the most images of any type of album we offer. They come in 100,200, or 300 pages, with one image per page - thats a lot of photos! They are made with recycled paper and surprisingly really durable for paper. This is one of Autumn's personal favorites! *Inquire for pricing, prices begin at $500 for 100 pages.
HARD COVER WITH LEATHERETTE SPINE, IN CLEAR DISPLAY BOX
This album comes in 8x8, 8x12 and 9x13 and has a really interesting way of being displayed inside a box with a clear lid, which affixes with four magnets on the corners. We absolutely love this option, since it puts your album on display while keeping it well protected. The sample shown is with a hard cover front, and a leatherette spine. But this album now has the option of upgrading to a crystal cover, inquire for more details. You choose the color of the box, spine, and ribbon!
*for pricing of this album, click here!
DESIGN PROCESS
So where do you begin when designing your album? Well, we just need to know your preferences of the style of the book, then some of your favorite images that you'd like in your album.
We will need the following information:
Type of cover _____________________
If leather, do you want embossed? _____________
If embossed, which color? ______________
If embossed, how to print names and date: ________________________
If image on cover (metal, dicut,hard cover, or crystal), which photo #? _________
If image on cover, are we photoshopping names/date into the photograph? _________
Size of your album_______
Vertical or horizontal orientation?________
Type of paper (we can make a suggestion or you can come see and touch the paper swatch samples in person)
Thickness of paper (thin, thick or extra thick)
How do you like your layout?
-A lot of white space
-No space / full bleed
-Little space, with black backgrounds
-Little space with white backgrounds
-Mixture of whatever the photographer/designer suggests will work best
How do you choose the images for your album? Well, there's a few ways to do that.
1. You can simply choose your favorites, and average about 2 per page. So if you would like 30 pages in your album, you'll want to choose 60 images, give or take a few.
2. You can let us (photographer & designer) choose the images we think are best. This is a good option if you literally love every photo and just can't decide. Keep in mind, you'll get a limited # of changes, so if we choose images you don't like you may only be able to swap a certain number of them photos out before getting charged additional fees.
3. Design your album by spread. We personally really like this. Here's an example of an album that was 30 pages, with 44 images. As you can see, there are several spreads with one full bleed image, which makes for some really great wide panoramas. To do this though, they were not able to choose the 2 average per page (60 images) for this 30 page book. Below you will see 15 spreads (A "spread" is two pages, left and right. So what you see below each will have the book folder right down the center). What you see below are the digital proofs after we designed the album, before it went to print.We'll also show a few examples of actual photographs after this album was printed so you can reference the look of a spread in the physical book.
Now that you've visualized a 30 page album, which is 15 spreads you can begin to put together the list of photos for your own album. You can give us a list like the following:
Spread 1 - bridal details, Photo #'s 4, 19, 29, 102
Spread 2 - getting ready girls, Photo #'s 56, 92, 104
Spread 3 - getting ready guys, Photo #'s 35, 72, 99, 172, 184
Spread 4 - ceremony, Photo # 249 (obviously with just one photo per spread, we'll know you want this full bleed)
ETC!
So basically you're designing your album, by the parts of the day, rather than blindly choosing a flat # of photos. When doing this, it helps a lot to figure out how many pages you really want/need. I suggest just doing this on scratch paper and see what you come up with. It does not matter how many images you pick on a spread, we'll make a design that fits with that number of shots. Just keep in mind more than 10 is typically getting a little too busy, but we've done some busy spreads that look great (like a dancing reception page with a bunch of crazy funny images of guests!) - so feel free to try and challenge us!