Blog Book Design Inspiration

It has been a a while since I've had an opening on my waiting list so this website has sat dormant for over a year. Word of mouth and return clients keep me hopping so posting here hasn't been high on my priority list.
I'm sorry to say that openings for new projects are still few and far between (see previous post for books I AM available for), but that doesn't mean I can't pop in and share some of my favorite layouts & some design/blogging tips when I'm waiting for a final book draft to upload to Blurb.com.

Tonight I'm sharing some layouts from one in a series of books that I have been making for a client in Colorado.  My hope is that seeing what a difference the ratio of text to photographs has in the feel of a blog book will encourage you to format your blog posts with a potential blog book in the back of your mind.

Vacation posts tend to have an abundance of photographs that can often take up multiple pages in a book. Whenever possible I try to group the text together at the beginning or with one particular photo so the rest of the photographs can be showcased like you see in the layouts below.  (The dark gray rectangle that you see at the top and bottom of the screenshot is the spine of the book.)

I am always on the lookout for 'clean space' in a photograph that I can use to superimpose text. I feel like this gives me the best of both worlds - eye catching layouts with the descriptions that are meant to go with the photos.

Wasting space means wasting clients money which is a big no-no in my book, but page after page of my signature 'patchwork layouts' is not ideal either. Instead I strive to strike a balance which to be honest, is often achieved simply by the flow of a blog...some posts have lots of photos and some don't!

Sometimes white space can be just as powerful as the photos themselves.



...and sometimes I use a combination of white space, blocks of text, and patchwork layouts to lead the eye through the story as the author intended.

Remember, a blog is set up to scroll through one picture or at best, one collage at a time with text sprinkled or pooled in varying places in the flow of pictures.  A blog book, on the other hand is designed to help a reader take in a much larger portion of the story all at once.  They eye travels around and around each two page spread until everything has been processed. If I've done my job right, a reader will keep circling the layouts, picking up new nuances on each pass.



When it's all said and done what matters is that you have invested in preserving memories!   I hope I  have inspired you to take more photos, write more blog posts, design your own blog book, or hire me if your project fits my current availability.




I made a book a month last year so there are many more samples & tips to come! If there is something you'd like me to cover in my next post please leave your questions and/or topic suggestions in the comments.

From a blog to a book - 3 posts in 4 pages

All along I've been sharing examples of how the finished products look, but today you get to come along and see where that information comes from - what the blog posts look like and how I come up with the final page design. You'll see that good book design isn't just about the layouts, it's about the text as well.

Take a look at this post called "The cloth diaper verdict is in" (Notice the words "Here are my lovely models...." under the picture that I chose as the focal picture of this layout.)

I changed the words in the book to say, "on the opposite page my models..." (another example of the detailed attention your book will receive)



This is a lengthy post so it takes up 3 pages in fit it all in - all but the slide show images. If your blog has slide shows and you want any of those images included in your book, you'll need to email the picture to me and I'll be happy to put it in your book.




The original text for the next post is as follows:

Thirteen Changes our family has made in the past few months 1…. We switched to cloth diapers (see yesterday's post)
2 . We use glass baby bottles instead of plastic
3 . We decided to wait to vaccinate our children until they
are older (see older post about this)
4 . We switched pediatricians
5 . We don't use the microwave anymore
6 . We stopped using the bottle warmer (It breaks glass bottles)
7 . I make Julia's baby cereal now instead of using boxed rice and oatmeal
8 . We use mostly glass dishes and stay away from plastic if at all possible
9 . We packed away the sippy cups and Sam uses water bottles or big boy cups
10. We started potty training Sam
11. We put ourselves on a tight budget in hopes of reducing our debt
12. We started putting Julia to bed on her tummy instead of her back now that she can roll herself back over when she wants
13. We stopped using a nebulizer to treat Sam's colds. (Frequent trips to the
Chiropractor and Marshmallow root drops have eliminated the need for it.)

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

(leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)
Jenissa


Jennifer

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Notice that the extras have been excluded from the final layout. You do have the option of having footnotes for any links you want to be able to visit again, but in this case the post has been stripped to the bare bones. Links are added as footnotes at the bottom of the post, typically in 10 point italic font.

It might seem odd to put the Thursday Thirteen post with this one, but in blogging, not all posts are related to each other. In fact, subject matter often jumps from topic to topic, but it is still possible to make the book cohesive with the use of consistent font patterns and sufficient white space. Here is another example of pages with multiple posts per page.

These particular pages are not dated. Some clients ask for each post to have a date, while others ask for them to be added weekly or monthly to give readers a general idea of the time line of events. I should also add, that one of the very best ways to save space is to opt for the later option. Not only does it eliminate the need for one more line of text, it allows me to shuffle posts here and there to maximize space.

Hopefully these examples give you a better idea of how I turn a blog into a book. If there are other blog book topics that you'd like me to cover feel free to ask!