Bespoke Handmade Albums

Or 

Enlightenment on the postings of
9th June and 20th August

Album showing specially commissioned images and reproduced images.

Some time ago I received a commission to produce a bespoke book/album for a 40th birthday and over the past months I had been supplied with a steady stream of family photographs, background material from both friends and family and the all important memories.

As many of the photographs were old prints, these had to be scanned, in some cases, restored and also suitably adjusted for reproduction in the finished album. Later digital images were not a problem, of course.

Slip case and book spine.

Whilst discussing the project, various stories came to light and in particular, the life story of a favourite teddybear. I suggested that it might be nice to photograph said bear and incorporate the new images into the album.

Teddy Edward was secretly delivered to me back in June and he became a model for the day, hence the posting 'VIB Photoshoot' (Very Important Bear of course)

The scenarios that he was placed in were acting out the stories that had been recounted. Illustrated here, having being thrown in a bin by big sister (She is remorseful now!).

















Several other photographs were taken, some having special significance, such as were used to create the end papers. Scans were taken of, amongst other things, greeting cards, letters and, (something we have all done) the inscriptions inside the special books from her childhood. It seemed only natural for this to become the title of the book, the spine showing one such inscription.

The layout was formulated- this one being fairly free-form (I had been reliably informed that that the recipient was not someone who fell into a 'formal layout' category) Although free-form, it actually takes a lot more planning and thought to produce a successful progression than a repetitative one-image-per-page layout. Once proofed, the A4 format album was printed onto high quality art paper, using archival inks, thus ensuring a long life. As this had the format of an album rather than a formal book, a brass screw post binding method was used, with bi-folded leaf covers. (Future books might lend themselves to a hand stitched, case bound format, again all produced in-house).

So the big day arrived on Saturday and Teddy Edward was finally able to reveal his experience as a VIB model to the world.


If you are interested in commissioning a similar bespoke book, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be happy to discuss your requirements with you.