Books, Design, Print Size, Etc
Keep it simple.
We make stuff. A lot of stuff. Most of the stuff we make doesn’t see the light of day beyond the studio, at least not in its first form. You cannot expect everything you try, especially your first try to work out. I think that’s a giant obstacle for a lot of people especially photographers. There’s a ton of work that goes into making many photographs, then more work deciding on a color/black-and-white/etc treatment, then there is the work of making some sort of sense out of what you have. Then there is the super hard part… deciding what to do with it.
Every single workshop we host ends up as a physical manifestation that can be seen and touched. The Portfolio Workshop is by far the most intense and covers much of all that work I mentioned above. The stuff we have coming up is probably a bit more intense in terms of the entire process. Much of those offerings we’re working on are driven entirely out of the needs from people who have participated in those workshops or in larger one-on-one projects that we have helped other people with. A lot of that are larger projects like a book driven by the work done in the Portfolio Workshop. What is the common thread we see? Things get too complicated, especially when it comes to design.
There are a few things I’d recommend that can all be covered by the age old notion of “Keep it simple” . Here are a few things to consider.
First things first. Know what your story is it you want to say.
Simple design is good!!! There is absolutely no need for you to complicate layouts, especially for art projects. If you are fiddling around with “templates” just stop, try something simple like one picture per page. Stop screwing with fonts, pick a well-worn typeface that coveys your overall feel.
If you find yourself messing with layouts and typefaces and all sorts of things before everything else is done you are avoiding the real work to be done. Most of the complicated “flashy” or “cutesy” layouts and fonts I’ve seen in books detract from the work and the story more than they help.
Make more prints, especially small prints, that could be a book or a portfolio. Prints in this form are extremely enjoyable when creatively packaged together to tell a simple story. They are also the most intimate.
How do you decide between a book or a portfolio? Here’s a general rule; ten to twenty, maybe a portfolio (defined as some sort of box of prints), more than twenty is probably a book. Handmade books are great but so are self-published. Both of these start out as a curated group of small prints and go from there. Small books are absolutely fine, even if they are less than twenty. They are especially good if those prints have an obvious beginning, middle, and end. They’re also great if there is important accompanying text no matter if it’s only titles and captions.
An Array of small prints on the wall of the same size works great, they’re also easy to change up seasonally, monthly, or when you're in the mood. You don’t need more wall space or more room, just use what you have and change it up. How about nine small, related (in any way) prints on the wall and a larger collection (also related) in a small book you can change up in the same room?
Keeping it simple is a good way to getting anything done. Printing more will automatically help you sort out your editorial voice. If you don’t make prints often of the camera work you do, you’ll be amazed at how that sorts the wheat from the chaff of all those pictures on your hard drive or the thousands you’ve posted randomly never to be seen again. Having them in view, sorting them, considering what they say consciously and subconsciously develop your editorial voice. It will also make you a more intentful photographer.
Keeping it simple in no way implies careful consideration of choices but it certainly reduces the number of things you need to pay attention to. A simple elegant design with carefully considered choices blows the doors off complex, overdone, layouts.