Making Photo Books: Planning Your Approach

My dad is fond of saying, “There’s always more than one way to get to your destination.” Of course, he usually says that when I turned right where he would have gone straight, but that brings up stories for another time. The point is this: There’s no one way to make an Inkubook. You can fly by the seat of your pants, or you can plot and plan in advance.

I am a methodical person. I like categories, boxes, labels, and alphabetization. I look at maps before I leave on a trip. I like to know when I’m supposed to be someplace and what I should bring to the party. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not totally maniacal about it, but planning makes me comfortable and happy. So when I start a new Inkubook, I like to plan what I’m going to do before I start.

For those of you who are a little bit like me and like to plan, we’re going to have a series of posts about the steps you might take to rough out a plan for how you’ll make your Inkubook. And for those of you who know how to enjoy being completely spontaneous and live entirely in the moment, you can just sit back and chuckle in amazement about how the other half lives.

So with that, I present the first step, which is…

1. Decide What Type of Book to Make

Why is it helpful to decide what type of book you’re making before you get started on anything else? Well, the type of book is probably going to have an influence on how it’s organized. For example, a book that tells a story probably needs a beginning, middle, and end so that the story is told in a linear fashion. In the case of a cookbook, you might want to organize all the recipes by the type of meal or by the main ingredient or by the person who contributed it. A business book might be broken into different sections about the company’s history, its product offerings, its community service, and the biographies of its management. A photo book might not have any particular organization at all.

After you’ve decided what type of content will be in your book, you can give some consideration to what style of book is most appropriate. For something that needs to be very durable or professional looking, a hardcover might be a nice. If you’ll be carrying many copies of your book with you to pass out at craft fairs or to give to the others parents of the soccer team, it might be important to you to have lightweight softcovers. Read more about the various styles of Inkubooks here.

In Part II of the series, I’ll make some suggestions for planning the content of your book. Keep an eye out for it!