Photo A Day 2011 photobook: Done!

I finally closed out my Photo A Day project from last year. The last (self-imposed) step was to publish a photobook with all 365 photos.

It was a project I had been putting off for many, many months. I intended to start piecing together the photobook even before the end of 2011. Honestly, I was dreading it, as it seemed like a tedious task.

But the photo printing Groupon I bought last July was set to expire soon, and nothing gets me going like the threat of letting money go to waste. And once I actually got rolling with the design, it wasn’t too bad. Going through all the photos actually made me a little sad that I didn’t just continue taking photos into 2012, but at the end of the year, I was ready to be done.

I got the book printed through Photobook America. I heard about this company through the Groupon, then checked out a review on PhotoBookGirl.com before buying it.

I wanted to do a week of photos per two-page spread, so some quick math let me know I was looking at 100+ pages. (Some of the more mainstream photobook websites top out at 100 pages.) And as a graphic designer, I wanted complete control of the page layouts. This company lets you do that! You can even use your own fonts.

Upon ordering, I was slightly concerned. The only option for payment was PayPal, and the books are shipped from Malaysia. But I ordered on a Tuesday and the book was delivered the following Monday, so I guess I shouldn’t have worried.

I’m very impressed with the quality of the book. The colors are true. There are no company logos anywhere. It looks like a professional store-bought book. I had a few hi-res iPhone photos mixed in, and you can’t even tell which ones they are.

p.s. I realize this post reads very much like some sort of endorsement or review of Photobook America, but I wanted to let you know it’s not. They didn’t pay me or give me anything or ask me to do this. I just wanted to note my good experience!

Related posts:
Lessons learned from my Photo A Day project
All Photo A Day posts