Help! I need your advice!
I am creating a book to celebrate Madeleine’s first year, something to keep for ourselves as a precious memory, to give to the grandparents, and most of all for Madeleine to look through when she is a little bit older. And I’m finding it more challenging than I thought.
There’s certainly no shortage of photographs of my beautiful girl (although photos of the first three months of her life seem to consist almost exclusively of selfie iPhone shots of her sleeping on my chest). But I’m struggling to decide exactly what to include and exactly how to go about it. For example:
Photographs
Do I choose photographs at each age, watching her grow? Do I include all the key events – Christmas; her ‘coming home from hospital’ outfit; her first meal of solids; her first trip to the zoo – or just pick and choose? Should I include photos of all the relatives? And what if the event or person is significant but the shot is lacklustre?
Text
How much text should I include? None at all? Just captions? Or should I pepper the book with little stories and anecdotes from Madeleine’s first year?
Layout
I have InDesign but I don’t know how to use it, other than line editing and copyfitting something that’s already been laid out. Do I try to get creative, with collages and illustrations and handwritten notes and deep etched ‘items of significance’ etc, alongside the more traditional ‘bleed to edge’ photos of my beautiful girl? And if so, do you know of a publishing software or website that will help me do that, without any design experience? Which leads me to…
Publishing
I’ve yet to choose a print-on-demand publisher. I’m rather drawn to Artifact Uprising, because the cloth covers and binding and paper quality look rather beautiful, much nicer than anything else I’ve seen. But I’m not sure how flexible the layout could be.
Have you done this with your child(ren)? I’d love to know how you approached it.
