We have been ordering and receiving many albums over the past month and while the final count on our holiday orders isn’t in just yet I can say with certainty that its record breaking!  For those who have been patiently waiting for their design we thank you for hanging in there and for those who are still mulling over the choices, check these out…

We’re a little biased, Queensberry Duo albums are our favorite of the option thus far.  Classic matted pages highlight key photos and portraits while flush mount pages combine images in a way that tells a story while maximizing space.  We love it when our photos can be big and bold across a layout.

We also love the variety of cover options available through Queensberry.  Check out Sally Ann & Clint’s wedding album: their large format aluminum bound album fits their style while the 9×9 parents copy is a little more traditional.

Sally Ann & Clint chose to include wing and flip pages into their design, adding an interesting constructional element.  The closed flip of the procession opens into a panorama of the ceremony and I love how it turned out, I included a detail of the wing too:

Taking photos of the actual album helps to demonstrate some of the details you can’t see in the preview layouts.  Sally Ann & Clint chose ivory mats with an ivory page: the page being the paper the photo is mounted to once its been trimmed just enough to allow the color of the paper to peek out from underneath the window mat.  By choosing the same color between the matt and the page, a depth effect is created.  Here are a few more snapshots from the design layout:

Liz & Greg chose the same ivory mats and pages but went for a 14×10 book for a more panoramic feel.  Like SA&C, they went for a non-traditional cover and chose sand leather, matching the groom/smen’s khaki suits.  They also chose a quarter photo front cover which turned out really beautiful:

I love the design of Liz & Greg’s album, its one of my favorites.  They added a couple pages just to make sure that there was a good representation of both family portraits and the day’s events.  Check out some details and a few snapshots from the layout:

Stay tuned because there have lots more lovely albums to share!

Posted by Mel @ 6:04 pm, in Albums | 2 Comments | Permalink

The folks at Queensberry see a lot of albums.  

(If you look up the word “understatement” in the dictionary, you’ll see the sentence above.)

But seriously, when the top album maker in the world contacted us to write about one of our books, we were on cloud 9.  Tickled pink.  Its no small honor to be featured on Queensberry’s blog and website, in the company of amazing photographers from around the globe.  In short and and in the words of our West Coast brethren, we’re stoked.

Check out the post here and congrats to Melanie and Neal whose beautiful duo album was chosen!

Posted by Mel @ 3:31 pm, in Albums, News | No comments | Permalink

I’ve been holding this post for awhile, waiting for just the right time to share it.  Melanie and Neal had a beautiful small town wedding in Onancock, Virginia last year with bright colors and many Southern, summer accents.  They chose a Queensberry duo album in classic black leather and matting and I’m very excited to finally share photos of the finished product.  

Duo books are unique because they combine both matted and digital pages, resulting in a very unique construction: its no surprise that they are our most popular album option.  Another perk of duo albums is the option to add wing (gatefold) and flip pages.  Wing pages create a dramatic opening sequence by splitting the first image you encounter down the middle into two doors that swing open into a layout, inviting the viewer into the story.  It made sense to use a photo of Melanie and Neal coming out of the church as our opening wing page so that the wings would open just like the church doors.  While photographing the book, I noticed that the church doors open into a photo of a window: it was unintended but nice to know that my subconscious still plays an active role in these things.  Check out this sequence to see how it works!

I am including a few screen shots of various layouts from this album design as well as a some detail shots so you can see how this lovely book came together.  If you would like to check out the entire layout, click here. 

Posted by Mel @ 2:46 pm, in Albums | No comments | Permalink

While design work is every bit as much a part of our business as shooting, I admit to treating it unfairly when it comes to blog spots.  No more: with a new blog, I am turning over a new leaf (ha, HA… that was an inside joke for you album makers out there).  I’m going to begin photographing books as they come in so you can better understand how a two dimensional design becomes a three dimensional object.

So let’s start with a tale of two recent coffee table books.  Coffee table books are our least traditional album option and certainly our least pretentious one as well, they just seem to say, “I don’t belong on a shelf, how ’bout a coffee table instead?  I promise I can handle all the handling”.  They can indeed handle the love so we hope you will leave them out to be enjoyed worry-free. Printed with archival glossy pages, luscious color and contemporary designs, they deserve to be picked up again and again.  

The natural bend of the binding in coffee table book pages lends a third dimension to panoramic layouts that you just can’t get with traditionally stiff album pages.  This photo I took of Revetta in the limo is one of my favorites from the wedding and while its not bad flat, I love how it really comes to life as a coffee table book layout:

Here are a few of my favorite layouts from Revetta and Jamie’s book, I included some details too so that you can get a sense of the book itself:

Another cool feature of coffee table books is the protective dust jacket that is printed to match the hard bound cover as you can see here:

Here are a few of my favorite layouts from Chantel and John’s coffee table book.  I included a photo of Chantel’s favorite layout, it demonstrates how the divide between the left and right page, which can appear quite harsh in a 2-D layout, melts right into the seam of the book.  Ah, so many nice things about coffee table books…

Be on the lookout for more book designs soon…

Posted by Mel @ 9:56 pm, in Albums | No comments | Permalink