Spurred on by finally finishing my USA Travel Book, I decided to finish up another photobook project and send it off for printing too.
I wrote about this project HERE and HERE. It started as a physical 4x6 mini book with rings then became 5x8 photoshop pages (for a Blurb Trade Book that size). I did enjoy the process of working with real supplies in the beginning but digital and minimalism is my thing so I swapped the project to a photobook.
I love photobooks. I love that there is a beginning and an end. I love that they fit nicely on my shelf and are easy to flip through. I love that they come in so many different sizes. I love that they are lasting.
The tricky bit about making photobooks is that you have to work on them for weeks/months/years before getting to see the finished product. You can't print half way through - it needs to be finished. That can be hard for motivation. One thing I like to do is print a few pages out as I'm going to see what it might look like once printed, especially the size of the journaling font.
I really enjoyed working on this book and hope to start another one soon for 2019. I've struggled with what to call it. It's not my Project Life - that is a whole other project HERE (and my third and final photobook project for this year that I need to have printed).
I've gone back and forth about calling it a commonplace book but that's what it is - a digital, minimal version. A collection of my lists, TV shows, song lyrics, recipes, movies, photos, quotes, random ridiculous thoughts and silly stories that don't really fit the aesthetic of my family photobook project/Project Life for 2018 or don't necessarily need a whole scrapbook layout.
Brandi Kincaid has so perfectly written about commonplace books HERE and this is from Wikipedia:
Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. Such books are essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas. Commonplaces are used by readers, writers, students, and scholars as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they have learned. Each commonplace book is unique to its creator's particular interests.
What I do know for sure is that I love having this kind of project on the go. It was something I worked on here and there but was always fun and not stressful. The size is really fun - 5x8, which is very close to the size of a Traveler's Notebook.
Specs: Blurb Trade Book (5x8, hardcover image wrap, standard colour paper) approx 105 pages. The paper quality of Blurb's Trade Books is not as high as their Photobooks but I find it perfectly fine for a project like this. The photos and text are crisp and clear. I also like the size options for the Trade Books which are not available as Photo Books. These books are also less expensive than photobooks. This Trade Book cost around $50 AUD.