I had the greatest mail day two weeks ago, as the remainder of my 2021 Artifact Uprising photo books arrived and we got to pour through the hundreds (thousands?) of photos of our family from the past year. My photo books are truly my most treasured physical possessions, and if you’ve been reading this blog or following along on Instagram for any length of time, you’ll know how much I love using Artifact Uprising. Their quality and design aesthetic are unmatched, and I have been using them exclusively for the last four years. My 2021 books included: four hardcover books (Parts 1-4) with everyday photos of our family, layflat books for Poppy’s newborn photos and two sets of professional family photos, and the new signature layflat books for Poppy’s six month portraits and a mini session we did with just the Petrovic girls! I still need to order art books for the girls’ school art, which I shared about in a blog post here.
Every year, I create a series of photo books made up of everyday-type photos that I’ve taken of our family. I’ve done this religiously since I was in college actually! When Isla was born in 2014, my ‘annual book’ became ‘books,’ and with each passing year, the number of books needed to hold all of the photos taken has grown! Now, I typically print four to five books a year. Since I’ve been doing these for 14 years, I wanted to share a few tips, tricks and lessons learned for making your own. I know it can seem like a very daunting task, but I promise it is always worth it!
My Annual Books
Customization options: I use Artifact Uprising’s hardcover book in the 8.5×11 size. Every year, I choose one color that will represent all of the books created that year. This past year, it was the beautiful Seamist color. I choose the partial dust jacket (now you can put text on the binding, which is the best!). I always put black and white photos on the cover for consistency! I choose lustre paper and do the standard dust jacket.
Page count: If you choose a 50 page base count book, you can make anywhere from 40-100 pages. If you choose 100 pages, you can make a 50-140 page book, and if you choose 150 pages, you can make a 100-210 page book. I always choose the 150 page option to start off. You can always change your page count if you click on Customize on the top left toolbar, then click the dropdown to the book size/page count.
Page layouts: There are so many templates to choose from (see screenshot of the options below). Artifact Uprising did a refresh a few years ago of the book making process, and it has made it so much easier to build your books. I try to maximize how many photos are in each book, so I typically use as many of the 4×4 templates as much as possible! A tip I have is to pre-populate your pages with this template, then go back to the beginning and drop in your photos chronologically, stopping to change the page to a ‘big feature’ layout if a photo calls for it!
Cost: The cost varies based on the number of pages, but I would say the average hardcover book (approx. 200 pages) is about $150-$200. Of course, you can always adjust your page layouts and book size to do more with less! Artifact Uprising kindly gave me a custom promo code to use, so you can get 15% off if you use SNAPSHOTS15.
Galleries: I create a gallery for each month of the year (essentially just a photo album), even if I’m playing catch up. It helps me to segment the photos into smaller time frames. I have galleries for July ‘21, August ‘21, etc. This is what works for me, because I typically have a lot of photos, but isn’t necessarily right for everyone, especially if you are playing catchup for multiple years! If you are creating a book with photos from your phone, I would recommend going through your camera roll, selecting all of the photos you want in the book then Airdropping them to your computer. They will end up in your Downloads folder, and from there, you can upload them directly to Artifact Uprising. PS The gallery names in Artifact Uprising are static – so be sure to name them accordingly when setting them up.
iPhone quality in books: I don’t have any phone photos in my books; however, I have friends who have created entire books with iPhone photos and they look great. I would probably err on the side of a layout with smaller photo sizes vs. one where it’s a full-page spread. When using digital camera photos, the quality is great. If the resolution is too low, you will be notified before ordering.
Staying ‘on top of it’ and finding time to create/update books: I try to update the annual books once a month so that it doesn’t seem like a daunting task. I have a calendar reminder set for the last Sunday of each month which I find really helpful. If you are getting caught up on years past, I recommend blocking out a few hours to tackle a bulk of the book. I find it hard to catch up in small increments on time, because I can’t remember where I left off!
Autofill and Design Services: I used to create books with another company that had a ton of colorful backdrops and looked more like a scrapbook. That became way too overwhelming to keep up with, plus I love the classic simplicity of the Artifact Uprising books. There is an autofill option that allows you to pick a gallery and fill in the photos automatically, then you can adjust any layouts if you don’t like how it populated the pages. I have done this before then tweaked it afterwards. I chose the chronological order and pre-populated a lot of 4×4 layouts beforehand.
Also, if you are pinched for time Artifact Uprising has a Design Services Team who can help with the curation of your yearly albums! The packages start at $316, including the album and design service. I totally have faith in you being able to make one yourself, but if the task seems too big and you keep putting it off, it may be worthwhile to have someone else build it for you!I hope this was helpful for you! If you have any questions, please email me!
