It has come to my attention that I have been neglecting the album portion of this blog in a big way.  I think it was my New Years resolution for 2011 to post albums more frequently.  Sadly, the albums I am posting today went out for holiday delivery back in ‘10 so they pretty much date back to said resolution.  But these are nice albums and its never too late to make a change for the better so let’s talk contrasting pagemounts, shall we?

In both our Queensberry matted and duo books, photos are mounted to an art paper called a page (hence the name pagemount) and the apertures of the matt are cut just a tiny bit bigger so that the page peeks through.  When you choose a page color that contrasts the matt color, you get a border effect that makes your pics go POP!

Its a more contemporary look that isn’t for everyone, but given that we don’t keep an example of contrasting pagemounts in our studio, I think its a good idea to profile it here.

Here’s the design for Laura and Tom’s album (I recommend checking the designs out first, that way the shots of the books themselves make more sense).  Laura and Tom’s wedding may have looked traditional at a glance: the guys wore tuxes and Laura wore a tiara, the ceremony took place at a Catholic church and the reception at a Country Club.  But look a little closer and you’ll see just how lively this couple is from their first dance to M.C. Hammer’s Can’t Touch This to family dance offs where cousins got served by Tom’s kid brother!  This story called for an album layout with a little less tradition.

The couple chose a duo book, which combines both matted and digital (or flush mount) pages.  The choice of ivory matting with black pages really brought the matted pages to life.

Or, if you ivory mats aren’t your thing, you can do black matting with an ivory page too.  Black matting to me always says old school: it reminds me of the photo albums I found in my grandparents basement that I assume my grandmother made, painstakingly attaching each photo to the black paper with a photo corner.  But add a white page and whoosh, we’re shuttled from 1955 to the here and now…  Here’s Becky and Mike’s album design, Check out a few pages of their duo album, which included a gatefold and flip page for some extra glitz.

Also worth noting is the half photo front cover that Becky and Mike choose for their book.   This means that a photo is printed over the right half of the front cover.   I’ve been meaning to get a sample of one of these in studio because the effect is actually quite nice in black and white, the photo is slightly metallic and blends into the genuine black leather that makes up the rest of the cover quite nicely.

Similarly, Christina and William opted for a duo book with black mats and white pages.  Their cover is blind embossed though, so classic!

Also, they chose a 10×14 vertical format rather than the 12×12, which is probably our most popular choice.  Large format albums can be 12×12, 14×10 horizontal or 10×14 vertical.

Hopefully this helps some of you looking for album ideas.  More to come next week…

Posted by Mel @ 4:17 pm, in Albums, Weddings | No comments | Permalink

We’re really excited about our Museum Art Books and with 20 different varieties to choose from (gad zooks) we better get as many examples up here as we can!

Natalie and Dave chose the Soho because of its hardbound photo cover, linen book binding and matching linen slipcase for storage.  They choose grey linen fabric for the binding, both classic and modern.

The couple chose linen art paper for printing and binding, my personal favorite.  Look into the petals in the flower girl’s basket as well as Natalie’s face and you can see the delicate texture of the paper through the images…

At a handsome size of 13×10 and an equally impressive 100 pages, this book has plenty of room for large, splashy photos and panoramas without ever sacrificing the number of photos for inclusion.  In many ways, its the best of all worlds.  Its got the room of a book with the formality of an album.

Here’s the entire layout if you want to check it out.  Congrats to Natalie and Dave on such a beautiful wedding last summer and also on the birth of their daughter Dahlia whom I can’t wait to meet very soon!

Posted by Mel @ 3:48 pm, in Albums, Weddings | No comments | Permalink

Here’s a sneak peek at a few of the options in our new, Museum Art Book catalog.  There are 19 different style options total with a variety of bindings, fine art papers and extras available to make each book unique.  With prices starting at $1500 for a custom design, 13×10 or 10×10 book with 100 pages, Fiver isn’t the only one drooling in this office.  I can’t wait to design his first year book!  (Maybe he should turn a year old first…)

Posted by Mel @ 6:01 pm, in Albums, News, Weddings, Wee Ones | No comments | Permalink

The vast majority of albums we order from Queensberry are made with black leather covers.  Always a classic choice, always a crowd pleasure, but a little ho-hum for those of us designing albums day in and day out.  Thank goodness for our vegan pals Allison and Evan whose wedding we shot many moons ago and whose album pictures I have been sitting on for almost as many moons.  Leather wasn’t even an option for them so their book was bound to be bound differently.

The couple chose a gunmetal buckram cover that bounced nicely with the graphite color of the bridesmaid’s dresses.  Instead of mounting the standard photo cover motif, I suggested using the birdy graphic from their invitation and wedding program to design something that matched.

Here’s the original stationary:

And the buckram cover with our custom cover motif:

The couple chose to add a wing (or gatefold) and flip page to their duo album.  The reception was the perfect place to get flippy with it and the gatefold opens into a photo of the same church where Allison’s parents were married:

Here are a few of the layouts from the design software as well as some shots of the album so you can see how they came to life.  We’re glad that Corey’s lack of socks was as memorable to Allison and Evan as it was to us, the layout with the guys hanging out before the ceremony might be my favorite album layout ever.  Thanks for letting me have a little fun with that:

A&E, we miss y’all and can’t wait to drop in and replace the peace and quiet of your Blacksburg home with the sound of our screaming child sometime very soon.

Posted by Mel @ 7:18 pm, in Albums, Weddings | No comments | Permalink