Pre-designed Albums Vs. Client "Designed"

A "pre-designed" album is an album in which the photographer picks the photos for you and designs the album layout as well. A "client-designed" album is one in which the client chooses the photos and the album layout is designed by the photographer. Which is better?

I can tell you that most clients who opt to pick out their own photos to include in their albums take a LOT LONGER than they thought it would take. During my consultation with my clients, I will tell them that if they pick out the photos for the album, it will take months before I will hear from them with their photo selections. Often, these brides will say, "Don't worry. I'll pick out the photos quickly because I want to get my album back as soon as possible!" I usually just smile and say, "No you won't." That usually gets their attention.

While everyone really does want to get their albums as soon as possible, often they find it very difficult to select which photos to go in the album. Why? Well, it's not impossible to get between 1000 to 1500 images from me at any given wedding. From that, I usually ask people to pick out somewhere between 40 to 60 images to put into the album which tells the story of the day. It's a lot harder than you might think.

This past year, virtually all of my brides have been late in picking out their photos. And a couple of the brides who opted for me to do a pre-design even had to wait a little because of the backlog created by clients who backed up the production cycle. Yeah, it's been a real challenge this year for albums!

If picking out the photos is so difficult, what are the advantages of letting the photographer do it? Well, consider that an album layout needs to tell a story and make sense from page to page. Most often that means the images must be selected so that they compliment each other on the page and also on the adjacent page. Often, it must also be in chronological order as well. Plus, some images may need to be larger than others to make the design look good.

When the photographer picks the images, he has the ability to mix and match as needed to get a nice looking design. But when he is stuck with whatever photos the client has chosen for him to use, some images may not make sense in telling the story, or perhaps that image cannot be used on the same page as another image so that creates a big "blank spot" in the design! There are lots of page designs that fall short because of wrong photo choices.

When I do my initial consultations with clients, I often show both pre-designed albums and also albums made where the clients chose the photos. I want my clients to see the difference. Although the photographer (that's me) still makes the designs, it's usually quite evident to people that the pre-designed albums look just a little better. Why? Well, you'll notice that there is less wasted space in the design and the 'flow' from picture to picture and page to page is better as well. That's because if a photo doesn't quite work on a page in the design, I have many other photos to pick from to take its place to make it work! Plus, I'll do custom cropping to fit the images nicely on the page. Often with client choices, I am not allowed to crop as needed.

When you make your first appointment to see me, be sure to ask to see the pre-designed albums vs. the client designed albums. I think you'll agree that pre-designs usually look better. And, with any luck, you'll get your albums back faster as well!