1. Find out what type of book your client wants

The first step in designing your client’s album is knowing what type of album they’d like. While the flush, coffee table book styled albums are all the rage these days, there is still a small demand for matted albums. Of course within each style there are a variety of options in manufacturing, size and format. Show and explain the differences to your clients and get them excited about the style they choose.

2. Pre-design

Initially it may sound counter intuitive, but pre-designing your clients’ albums, in the long run, will actually save you time. Who knows your images better, has the experience and has the creative vision to design your client’s wedding album? You do.While your clients are on their honeymoon, edit their images, create a folder of album favorites and create and album layout BEFORE they return and see the rest of their images. They will be wowed by your images and your design and it will be much easier for them to understand the final product. Sure they make a few changes for some images, but in general, your clients will trust your design talents and you will see completed album sales much quicker than waiting for them to pick out their favorite images. We recommend over designing the album with more images or more pages than included in their package. While it is best to show your layout in person in your studio, you can post your layout online as well, but be sure to explain why you created the layouts you did so that they don’t pick apart each individual page layout. They can always eliminate pages or you can upsell them on the additional pages or a multi-volume set.

3. Less is More

Some of the most beautifully designed albums actually use fewer images, or at least more sparsely laid out pages. These pages look less cluttered and truly highlight your images. On average, four to five images per two page spread offers some wonderful design options. One design approach is to feature a single image on one half of the page spread, the key image for that part of the story, with smaller, accompanying images on the opposite page. Less is more and simple is beautiful.

4. Tell a story

The most successful wedding albums tell a story. The success and beauty of this story not only depends on your album design and how you visually take the viewer through the album, but the images you take as well. Remember the five Ws of journalism – Who, What, When, Where and Why. Capturing all of the people, places, details, events and emotions of your client’s day will insure that they’ll be able to relive their entire day through your images.

5. Don’t forget the family

Not in an ominous way like Don Vito Corleone might have said it, “Never go against the family,” but in a joyous way, we suggest that you remember the bride and groom’s family when designing your albums. Once you’ve designed your main album, with just a click of your mouse you can order parent albums, grandparent albums and even wedding party albums that are clones of the original, a fraction of the cost. This can mean lots of happy people and great additional profits.

Time to vote for your “Idol Album Tips.” Share with us your favorite album tips so we can all vote on the best one.