Update: Since MyPublisher was discontinued, here is the current way we print our photobooks.
We’ve been getting a lot of questions about whether we made a family photo book this year and when we’d share the details. Short answer: yes. The latest edition of the Petersik Family Yearbook arrived this weekend, and we’re as impressed as ever.
It’s amazing how much can be packed into a slim, well-designed photobook. The picture above shows five years’ worth of photos — more than 2,400 images — taking up the same shelf space as a single traditional photo album that might hold only a couple hundred prints.
This year’s cover came from a playful snapshot from our summer trip to Florida. Sherry convinced me to go shirtless for the cover — really, Clara’s grin is the star that sold the photo. The white title is a bit subtle against the light image from a distance, but it reads clearly when you hold the book.
This is our fourth year turning a full year of family photos into one bound volume. We followed our usual format and extended a color from the cover across the spine and back — this year’s spine is a soft seafoam green that complements the photo.
We time our order around MyPublisher’s promotional “Free Extra Pages” offer, which runs periodically. That promotion lets us print up to 99 pages without the usual surcharge for anything over 35 pages, saving us nearly $80 this time. The final price was about $48, which we think compares favorably to the combined cost of printing all those photos and buying one or more traditional albums.
We also value the backup these books provide. We keep design files for each year on our computer so we can reorder quickly if needed, and MyPublisher stores purchase files on their end too. That means any book we’ve made — even from years ago — can be reprinted without starting from scratch.
Inside the book we include a short highlights page at the front, where we list notable events from the year in two columns. The book layout software lets you add type easily, so we use it to provide a quick, chronological overview of key moments.
We pack a lot of images into some spreads, like this one documenting our book tour adventures. Other spreads are more focused: for example, we made a comparison page showing Clara with both sets of grandparents on her birthday for the past four years.
Some pages are designed with fewer, larger photos to highlight favorite moments — like two standout images from one of Clara’s birthday parties — while other spreads reflect big life events such as our move, where we’re grateful we took photos of the empty house before handing over the keys.
This year we made a conscious effort to include more photos of us working on home projects. Previously we backed up “blog photos” and “family photos” separately, which meant many project shots stayed with the blog folder and didn’t make it into the family album. Over the past year we were more deliberate about adding selected blog images into the family album folder so those moments would be represented.
Our photo organization is simple: we use iPhoto and keep a dedicated album called “Family 2013.” Throughout the year we add family shots there so everything stays chronological. When it’s time to build the yearbook we choose our favorites, import them into the MyPublisher desktop software (free to download), and arrange the pages.
Near the end of the book we reserved a dozen pages for Instagram photos, presented as casual grids. It’s not every IG image we posted in 2013, just a selection of favorites. Grouping them together at the end creates a relaxed, wrap-up feeling that works well after the more curated spreads.
This is our fourth time assembling one of these, so I’ve gotten better at pacing photos across pages. In earlier years I hit MyPublisher’s 100-page limit before finishing the year, but this edition left enough room for an extra spread to include the final 12 photos from Clara’s monthly photo project.
Going through these pages is a real flood of memories. How are you commemorating the year? If you make photobooks, do you prefer dedicated yearbooks, scattered prints in albums, or another method entirely? We’re always curious about new services or tools people use, so tell us what’s working for you.