For the second in a series of three articles on wedding album design, we have Stephanie Zettl, who is fast establishing herself as one of the best wedding photographers in St Louis.

the other related article is:
elegant & profitable wedding albums, by Fundy

why create a wedding album?

by Stephanie Zettl

Ever since I started my business I have always included an album in our collections. Occasionally we will produce the rare “shoot & burn” but I really try to shy away from them. (Shoot and Burns are when you only deliver the digital images on a disc – no prints or albums are provided)

I believe an album should be provided with all collections because we are all losing a bit of our photographic legacy as images get achieved into the dark recesses of our hard drives. Having access to digital files is important. Sharing photos on facebook and your iPhone gives people a lot of pleasure and is a good thing.

But there also needs to be a hard copy that will survive the internet and the computer upgrades. There needs to be something that the bride and groom can touch and feel and show future generations. There needs to be something that will survive and create their personal legacy. I truly believe that people deserve good photographs and albums that their children and grandchildren will be able to appreciate.

Keeping the thought in mind that people will be looking at these albums today and also 20, 50, 75 years from now helps me design my albums.

Design Philosophy

My design philosophy is that you should always see the photos first and not the design work and that the photos should tell you a story about what happened that day.

In general I try to also keep a very clean and simple design. I do tend to have more photos in my albums than many other photographers. But you will never see borders, drop shadows, or massive graphics in my albums. The photos should always be the main thing you see when you look at the album, not the Photoshop effects.

When I first started shooting weddings, I wasted a lot of money on album templates. For me. templates don’t work because they are often designed to the way a certain photographer shoots and not necessarily my style. It was always hard to find the right template to fit the page. I was wasting more time trying to find the photos for a page than actually designing the page. Total waste of time and money for me.

I resorted to designing all my albums in Photoshop freehand. But that seemed to take forever.

Thankfully I was introduced to Fundy’s Album Builder software. I have been a huge supporter of FAB since I started using it 3 years ago. It works in Photoshop. It works on a Mac. It’s easy to use and allows for freehand design. And most importantly it is a time saver.

My style has a documentary feel to it and I try to make it tell a story. When I start designing an album, I choose all the photos I want in the album. I then go through the photos and group them into the photos that will go on one page. Each page gets it’s own subfolder to put the images into.

When I get into grouping photos and designing an album, I am always thinking about what the main photo for the page will be. Every page needs to have an anchor photo – a photo that will stand out and make the page visually interesting. Often times that main photo will take up half the page. After that I look for images that support the main photo and tell a story.

Once you have your design done and approved by the client, it’s important to choose a good album company. There are many different album companies out there with varying levels of quality and style. Some of the well-known quality companies include Finao, Vision Art and PictoBooks. Each has a different style that you should research. The type of album that you choose to display your work should be complimentary to your photography.

No matter what your method is, by creating a good design and choosing the right album to display your work, you are ensuring that your clients will be proud to show off their album. That is the goal of every wedding we shoot.

Stephanie Zettl

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