• Best of the Year – make a summary of your past year with a photo book.

    Photo Book Ideas: Highlights of the Year

    Tips and Ideas on Creating an Individual Summary of Your Year

    Over the course of the year, we end up taking a lot of photos whilst on holiday, at sports events, hiking, special occasions with family and friends, birthdays, pets and so much more. All of these memories are often captured with digital cameras and smartphones. At the end of the year, you will most probably also have a lot of photos from special club events, school classes or from singing in a choir. An individual photo yearbook will help you to look back on all the good times you’ve had over the past year. This is also a good idea so that you don’t lose any of your favourite photos as you can put them into your individual Best-of-the-Year yearbook. A perfect gift for family and friends as you can reminisce together time and time again about all the good times you’ve had. We will provide you with some helpful tips to make sure that your individual Best-of-the-Year Photo Book is a hit.

    Tips on Taking, Organising and Selecting Photos

    Designing your yearbook actually begins well before the actual creation of your photo book. You can save quite a bit of time by keeping several things in mind whilst taking photos and selecting which photos to use.

    Camera Settings

    On the settings on your digital camera or smartphone, you can save the recording location and date of your photos. By doing so, you will not have to retrieve this information later, but you can use this for your yearbook.

    A photo yearbook - you can make a note of the place and the date of where the pictures were taken.

    Taking Photos for Your Individual Yearbook

    When taking photos of great subjects, you should shoot them in both portrait and landscape format. This will give you more flexibility when arranging individual pages in your photo book.

    You can also use memorabilia like tickets or event programmes while designing your photo book. Simply take a photo of them and place them in your photo book. Adding such things will give your book a unique touch.

    Saving and Organising your Pictures

    Photos should be regularly uploaded from your camera to your computer and saved in a designated file, especially when shooting with multiple devices. We’ve put the most important information together about managing your photos in the following article: click here to find further tips on how to organise your photos.

    Turning Your ifolor Photo Book into a Yearbook

    Finding the Perfect Photo Book

    At ifolor there is a wide range of photo books to choose from, however, there are some variations between the different products such as production methods, the cover and binding, as well as the maximum number of pages available. At ifolor you are guaranteed to find the perfect photo book for your yearbook.

    Ifolor Bestseller: Photo Book Deluxe

    The Deluxe Photo Book is available in various sizes with a high-quality hardcover and adhesive binding and you can add up to 180 pages. Thanks to the 170 g/m2 digital printing paper your favourite photos from the past year will really stand out.

    from from per-item

    Photo book Premium Photo Paper

    You can have up to 120 pages and your favourite photos will really stand out thanks to the high quality premium photo paper. The size allows you to have two photos printed in a large format, so that you can view them without having to turn the pages.

    from from per-item

    Photo Book Spiral

    The Spiral Photo Book has a robust spiral binding and we use silk matt digital printing paper for your photos. This makes it a great choice for your photo yearbook. Family and friends can flick through your individually designed photo yearbook and look back on all the good memories time and time again.

    from from per-item

    Photo Book Soft

    The silk matt pages in the Soft Photo Book are made out of 170 g/m2 digital printing paper. The soft cover with adhesive binding makes the Soft Photo Book a lightweight and space-saving album that you can easily take with you to show your loved ones your favourite pictures from the past year.

    from from per-item

    Ifolor Booklet

    The booklet is a great choice if you would like to put your best photos from the past year with just a few clicks in one place. The square booklet is 13x13 cm and it can be designed with 20 to 100 photos, which means one photo per page. Design it on the ifolor app directly from your smartphone, online or on the ifolor Designer.

    from from per-item

    Tip

    On ifolor Designer you can save your designed photo books and edit them at any time, which will come in handy when it comes to making your own photo yearbook. This allows you to edit your yearbook every year and to add new pictures. Over the years, you'll create a great collection of yearbooks with a uniform design.

    Here Is how You Can Design a Great Photo Yearbook:

    Do´s

    ✔️ Use a mix of full images and collages and make sure to not use too many photos at once.

    ✔️ Choose a theme for your individual yearbook or arrange your photos in chronological order.

    ✔️ Use backgrounds and designs that match the photos.

    ✔️ Use photos with good image quality or only use photos with lower resolution in a small size. (The Design Editor and ifolor Designer will tell you if the image quality is too low for the chosen picture size).

    ✔️ Use font sizes between 11 and 14 for the main text. You can use larger font sizes or bold for headings and individual words.

    Dont's

    ❌ Add too many pictures as it can make the page look too busy.

    ❌ Design your yearbook without an idea.

    ❌ Use colourful backgrounds and too many frames and clip art pictures.

    ❌ Have low resolution photos in a large format in your photo book.

    ❌ Use a font that is too small because it will be difficult to read once the photo book has been printed.

    Choosing a Layout for Your Individual Photo Book

    The traditional layout for a yearbook is organised by months, seasons and special events. Mark the changing of seasons and events in the book with a heading or a cover picture. This is a great way to organise your photo book from start to finish.

    You can also create your Best-of Photo Yearbook with a specific motto. For example, create a book on various topics, such as:

    A family yearbook – full of the best family photos from the past year.

    Tip

    It’s a good idea to get started with designing your photo book during the course of the year. If you take the time to look back on the great photos you have taken before the end of the month it will make it a bit easier to remember all the good times you’ve had. It is a good idea to create a folder for your photos each month so that you can save the pictures, which you would like to use later in your individual photo yearbook. This will make it easier for you to put your individual yearbook together.

    Choosing Your Photos

    Having a mix of photos such as portrait, panorama, close-ups or detailed shots will give your individual photo book a great look. The photos don’t need to be perfect as the main thing is that they have character and sentimental value.

    Number of Photos and Picture Quality

    You shouldn’t put too many pictures on each page. Your individual yearbook will look better with fewer and more high-quality photos. Use the ifolor Designer to try out different layouts and styles so that your individual Best-of Photo Book has a varied design. If you captured a particularly good photo in great detail, it may be worthwhile putting these pictures adjacent to each other to create a story board.

    Titles and Text

    You can add text to finish off your photobook and adding some short descriptions of the different photos will help you to remember any special details about the photos. Adding quotations, place names, dates, names, as well as anecdotes are a great way to add the finishing touches to your individual photobook. To introduce each new section of your photo book, you can use a heading or perhaps the name of the month.

    Using Different Designs

    You can rotate individual photos or overlap them by using other photos. Using borders is a great way to separate photos from the background. You can use clip art, speech bubbles, flowers, patterns, and other designs to finish off the design of your individual photo book. Make sure to try out the different design options on ifolor Designer to create your very own photo book.

    A Best of the Year Photo Book – choosing a matching background to match your photos.

    Download the free e-book to create your own individual best-of yearbook. Here you will be able to find further design tips and tricks for creating your own individual photo book.

    By following our creative tips and a few ideas, your best-of photo book will be the best present under the Christmas tree. We hope you have fun designing and flicking through your individual photo book with family and friends.

    Getting Inspired

    Below you can read our guides on designing a travel yearbook, family yearbook and a party yearbook.

    Newsletter-Anmeldung

    Newsletter

    Sign up for the ifolor newsletter and be the first to know about promotions, innovations or inspirational blog posts. Register now. See you soon!

    Similar Articles