Over the years we’ve been taught to never throw out our “old clothes” as the fashion styles always come back. Look no further than the huge sun-glasses that were popular in the 70’s… which are all the rage today. So what about wedding album trends of yesteryear?  Will they too come back?  In the pre-digital day, the most popular photo albums were “Matted”.   They were generally composed of  8×10, 5×7 and 4×5 photos individually matted.  For special effects, we’d crop the 8×10’s to 6×10 or 5×10, and create custom pages with 5 photos with overlaps.  This was all done with an exacto knife and  rulers….not PhotoShop. From the time we launched Zookbinders in 1995 until the early 2000’s, most of the photo albums we made were Matted Albums.  Each photo was hand-mounted and recessed into a 12×12 album page and bound by hand.   We created a niche as being THE most innovative and creative album company, and our clients won photo album competitions on a regular basis. I still keep this first place winner from 1997 in my office. It was made for Terry Wahlburg, a ridiculously talented photographer from Jacksonville, FL who was tired of coming in 2nd for the hotly contested photo album competition at the annual Florida Professional Photographers Show. She enlisted our help, and we helped her get the gold! An 8×8 Cameo on a Glove Black 12×12 photo album This was the first (and only) time we’ve ever made this Special Panorama This was one of our first “pinwheels” This was the first “diamond” photo we ever made! So now that you’ve seen the best from 1997…is it time to give PhotoShop a rest and create a sample of a “vintage” Matted Album?  Samples are always 50% off.  Who knows, maybe you’ll win the next album competition because… the judges have never seen anything like it! Another special frame we made for this book – the “Octagon”