Portfolio Photo Book

[Dwayneb9584]

Hey All,

So I'm looking at putting together a portfolio book for my work and can use some advise on where to start. I was thinking of making one with Adorama Pix or buy some sort of frosted cover and make the prints myself. However frosted cover acrylic portfolio covers can be very pricy. I was thinking about printing front to back prints at say kinkos on really good paper (which still may not be so good), and bouding it myself. I'd like to start with 8.5x11 and make about 10-15 books. I was thinking of doing sort of a Zine style of my work however, I was going to send this out so do you think I should invest lots of money into a really pro looking book, or should the work speak for itself. All help will be greatly appreciated.

Dwayne

 

[Colin Corneau]

Are you really asking whether or not it's worth money to represent yourself professionally to potential clients..?

The work, as well as how it's presented, is what does the speaking. I don't think you need gold leaf and platinum, but if you don't care about your work then why would anyone else?

There are tons of places online that will print and bound a photo book professionally.

 

[Dwayneb9584]

I wasn't implying whether or not it was worth it or not as I know it is I just wanted to know everyone's take on it. I know it's important to invest in your work as I do, I just wanted peoples take on it. I do know that a zine can come off a bit punk rock and portray a style that may not suite what I wanted to display. I do plan on doing a few 8x10 books with Adorama Pix as they are affordable, and by the reviews people seem to be very satisfied. But if I wanted to send this away to say a few potential clients I'd like to work with would that be a good idea as they cost over $50.00 each book. What's your take on that?

 

[majid]

You should try Blurb to print books (I used them for my wedding album), or HP MagCloud if you want more of a magazine effect. Much less fuss than fiddling with presentation binders and the like.

 

[_larky]

HP Magcloud, had never seen that. It looks very cool.

 

[Piewacket]

I posted about this another thread but I just saw this one. I love blurb and just printed a new portfolio with them. It looks amazing, more details and photos on my blog.

 

[robklurfield]

nice work on your blog.

I posted about this another thread but I just saw this one. I love blurb and just printed a new portfolio with them. It looks amazing, more details and photos on my blog.

 

[Colin Corneau]

Blurb gets good reviews, I had good results using Apple's iPhoto book service -- both offer good pricing.
Most photo labs may also offer book printing, and the options get better all the time.

I think the effort is worth it, but only you know your situation well enough to say -- you have to balance the odds of further work with the cost of printing and delivering the portfolio. My take is, it can only help you but you have to target it well.

 

[_larky]

I read nothing but good stuff about Blurb, but the tool for making the books is awful.

 

[Spleenrippa]

I read nothing but good stuff about Blurb, but the tool for making the books is awful.

I believe Blurb has a couple different software tools now, as well as the ability to just upload your own PDF

 

[Piewacket]

nice work on your blog.

Thanks!

I read nothing but good stuff about Blurb, but the tool for making the books is awful.

It is a little quirky but I found if you keep it simple it is not too bad. You can work around their template limitations by design your pages in photoshop and uploading it as one image. I did a lot of full page bleeds this time and they came out great. I hate having to convert everything to jpg though to upload, kind of pain but once you do it, I found it pretty easy.

 

[daveleo]

I posted about this another thread but I just saw this one. I love blurb and just printed a new portfolio with them. It looks amazing, more details and photos on my blog.

Off the topic, but . . . love your "blog" pages and the general "style" and look of your photo work is inspiring.

 

[ryan26]

I'm an amateur bookbinder, and am constantly experimenting with different ways of presenting work (Photo books are my thing!). I have done a couple of nicely bound books using moab's double sided matte paper (good, but needs to be varnished), have also used pictorico's double-sided lustre paper (ok, but magazinish), ilford's double-sided lustre paper (too squeeky), and epson's double-sided matte paper (too flat). I have also made books out of xerox prints - sometimes for aesthetic purposes, and sometimes to keep cost down on preliminary dummies. I've tried the print on demand companies too, and have used single-sided sheets to make a stab-stitch portfolio too.

My suggestion for a portfolio (given your criteria) would be to make a few stab-stitch books. You get to control the print quality (unlike adoramapix or Kinkos), and it's far far easier an undertaking than sewing up a traditionally bound book using double-sided inkjet papers (which can be a bitch).

 

[ryan26]

Stab-stitch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdwDYVlZK2A&feature=player_embedded

You can also use a drill, two strips of wood and binding screws from an art store.

 

[Piewacket]

Off the topic, but . . . love your "blog" pages and the general "style" and look of your photo work is inspiring.

Thanks so much.

 

[menos]

Thanks so much.

Thanks for your blog - spend quite some time ;-) Great site indeed.