Rangefinder Magazine
March 2005

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Designing “What’s Next?” Panos by Casey Bradley Gent

I’m all about sitting on the edge of my seat. What’s going to happen next? Will she or won’t she? Did they or didn’t they? It doesn’t seem to matter whether we’re talking about my 40-year-old best friend contemplating a Harley-Davidson tattoo on her birthday, or Jane Doe saying “I do” on TV’s The Bachelor. The suspense of “What’s next?” keeps us ticking. If I think about the hottest trends just in TV, I think about Fox’s American Idol and CBS’s Survivor. Do we watch because of the action or because of the “What’s next?” factor? Go ahead, admit it—we all enjoy wondering, speculating, and thinking we might be in the know. And, just as suspense keeps 40th birthdays interesting and television executives employed, the “What’s next?” factor also helps professional photographers. Magazine-style wedding books are dynamic to design and the most personalized way for brides to showcase pictures, but the main lure is that they keep people wondering what’s on the next page.

In a generation of digital and hybrid studios, magazine books encompass the very best of what technology can offer. These books are, in a word, smooth: smooth with graphic art lines and effects; smooth right down to the flush-mounted style of each unique page. Magazine books are not defined by mattes or a preset picture count. These books have eliminated the professional’s role of stocking precut mattes and bulky pages, and have opened a new dimension in shooting weddings with images that are more about “feel” than basic faces.

Traditional albums had a sort of bland recipe. We knew to shoot a certain number of 10x10s, 8x10s, 5x7s and 5x5s. But in the era of magazine books, we no longer have to shoot to fill mattes. We can now shoot to build layers with our images, meaning a wider variety of pictures “make the cut” and are built into the bride and groom’s spicy final book.

Pages can be designed for the left- or right-hand page, but magazine books are best showcased when two-page panoramic layouts are used to heighten the viewer’s interest. Keep in mind that some album companies cannot bind more than three panos (or six joint pages) into each book. However, there is continual improvement in the binding process, and certain companies now offer complete books with no visual “gutter” or hinge area. When you design panoramic pages, design for the measurement of a two-page spread, and keep in mind that up to a half-inch of each side of each page will be trimmed before binding.

There’s no question that magazine-style books are hot. But, it is the incorporation of panoramic pages that keep every book looking different for the designer and the client. Therefore, I’ve defined eight elements of design that are sure to keep brides asking, “What’s next?”

Effective panoramic pages are page-turners that keep you sitting on the edge of your seat, and as long as both the designer and bride feel excited about what each page has to offer, magazine-style books are positioned for a long stay in the contemporary spotlight. Suspenseful designs, if you will, also help to sell more pages and bigger books.

Dynamics of the “What’s Next” Design:

1. Panos must contain motion—walking, dancing, moving, or even water or clouds. Pages with motion lead the eye, just like in a fine painting, and we become part of the experience.

2. Panos should contain a series (almost like an old-style contact sheet) to include vignettes of such things as the couple arriving, exiting, or exchanging rings.

3. Shoot with the idea of laying out a movie. In album design each frame is like a movie take, and each movie take adds up to the whole picture.

4. Panos must contain shapes and angles. Start with the idea of leading lines to bring your eye into a picture. This is part of what makes these books dynamic.

5. Panos allow us to shoot using camera tilt. Remember there isn’t a preset mold to be filled, and you can shoot from unique perspectives.

6. Panos should contain repetition. My studio designer, Deborah Killian, believes that repetition is at the heart of magazine books. “Every eye doesn’t see every piece of an incredible image the first time. Repetition lets each bride enjoy incredible images in “several courses.”

7. Panos should contain one eye-popping Photoshop effects. The sky is the limit here. By altering saturation or opacity, and overlaying images atop other images, a visual diversity is achieved. Other popular effects are hand-tinting, vignetting and brush stroke borders. Photoshop effects (used minimally) give portraits more dimension.

8. Panos should contain some form of personalization. By incorporating a couple’s favorite poems or bible verses or song lyrics, you make their book truly one of a kind. Such items sell exceptionally well, because their uniqueness invokes an emotional response. Personalization is an effective way to increase page sales.

By using the tools I’ve listed above to design effective panoramic pages, your magazine-style album books can hold suspense for each hand that turns a page. Enjoy!

Casey Bradley Gent owns Snowshoe Studios in Colorado. She is a film shooter who shoots weddings, children and the Denver Broncos NFL team. Deborah Killian, the lead designer for Snowshoe Studios, designed several of the pano pages shown in this article from Gent’s photographs.