KISS Wedding Books

Last week, I joined the many fabulous wedding and portrait photographers of the country at WPPI. Unlike my friends who were there to learn about their craft, I spent most of my time wandering around the casinos and the WPPI trade show floor. Instead of learning about photography (although I could use a refresher!), I learned a lot about album vendors. The very first thing I learned was that there are A LOT of them! Since I was overwhelmed, I'm sure everyone else was too. But thankfully, I took some notes and Armin (of Armin Defiesta Photography) was there to capture some video notes. So here's the first installment of many album vendor reviews to come:


KISS Wedding Books is an album vendor that I have designed for a few times. Overall I am impressed by them because of their commitment to their mission - "Keep It Simple Stupid" while maintaining quality in their albums.

Simply put KISS offers a limited number of options for their albums which keeps order complexity down and minimizes errors.



Here are some specifics:

• 3 sizes, all square albums
• 7 colors for all leather covers - no cameos, no printing or embossing, no frills
• pano books, or "invisible" gutters (See Lesson 3)
• design template available in InDesign format
• accepts designs in .jpg format at 300 dpi
• online file uploading
  
• 2 week turnaround (or if they are behind, they let you know quickly)
• dedicated order reviewer
• all books come with a slip cover
• design work is contracted to third party designers listed on their site

So for your brides who are looking for something simple, this is vendor is a great option. It will keep your workflow simple as well. However, for the bride who is looking for something more or if you want to upsell your bride on a "fancy" album, you're not going to find it with KISS.

Check out this video that shows you first hand a KISS album. Recognize the design?? :) Thanks Armin for posting the video!


Wedding Book Sample from Armin DeFiesta on Vimeo.

What a photographer really needs...

...is the truth! Or at least someone who can answer some basic design questions in an objective way.

I just got back from a couple of fun filled days at WPPI. I met some incredibly talented photographers, got a chance to walk the trade show floor with a couple of them, and made some wonderful new friends. As I was spending most of my time visiting album vendor booths, I realized 2 things - 1) vendors never take the time to explain, they only try to SELL and 2) at first glance, all vendors look alike. So after getting some input from my new found friends, I thought two specific items would be helpful to all my photographer friends:

1) To define some basic album design terminology and guidelines
2) To provide basic album vendor reviews and provide tid-bits on vendors as I hear about them.

For all you readers out there, please send me any design related questions you might have. If you're asking, I'm sure someone else is asking the same thing!