Every photo book project is unique, with each individual creator (that’s you!) capturing a set of memories that magically unite to tell a special, personal story. That story can be straightforward or complex, linear or all jumbled up, and presented with chic minimalism or embellished with colors, patterns, and stickers galore. Yet, every single one is made out of the same basic ingredients—the essential contents of a photo book.
What goes into a well-organized, beautifully designed photo book? First and foremost is a collection of photos that match your book idea. Then, optional text elements, design assets, and fun, functional extras. Let’s explore each category of what goes into a photo book.
Related: Mixbook 101: How to get started on photo books, cards, and calendars
Content ideas: What to include in a photo book
The contents of a photo book can comprise only photos, or photos plus varied adornments and extras. This is true for all photo books, from travel and year-in-review books to DIY cookbooks and wedding albums. The decisions over what goes into a photo book depend on the story you want to tell, the particular memories you hope to evoke and preserve in the book, and your own personal style.
Photo collection
Your entire photo book project could be inspired by a set of favorite photos, or you might have an idea for a photo book first, then gather or take pics to fit the concept. Either way, putting the photo book together starts with a curated collection of high resolution photos.
Ask yourself, what is the story of the book? Try to summarize your photo book idea in one sentence. Choose only photos that fit that vision, and narrow them down to your favorites. Aim for a balanced collection offering visual interest. This will generally mean including a variety of subjects (people, scenery, action shots, closeups e.t.c.), all unified by the focal subject of your book.
Text elements
For most photo books, text elements are there to support the photos in telling the overall story. All written contents of a photo book should enhance, organize, or add essential details. Examples of text contents of a photo book include:
- A book title on the cover page and spine
- Page headers to define sections of the book
- Informative captions e.g. name, place, date, or other helpful details
- Fun captions to explain what’s going on in the photo or recall memories
- An introductory letter or short essay e.g. A message from the principal at the start of a yearbook, or a love letter to your spouse at the start of an anniversary gift book
- Quotes, sayings, song lyrics, or lines of spiritual texts that complement the photo spread
- Longer pieces of writing, such as transcribed interviews with elders for a family history book, or a copy of your vows in a wedding album
Tip: If you need a little help finding the right words for a photo book, try out the AI-generated captions tool in Mixbook Studio™.
Design assets
Mixbook’s professionally pre-designed photo book themes provide cohesive sets of design assets—backgrounds, typography, stickers, and content prompts. These assets offer particular color palettes and aesthetic styles that come together to define the overall look of your photo book. Use the provided assets to guide you through the process of dragging and dropping your photos into place, editing any text, and embellishing the pages with accents.
Design assets are all customizable. You can use the “Backgrounds” panel to switch to any solid color or browse hundreds of patterns. In the “Text” panel, try alternative fonts and edit text size, color, alignment, and text box settings. Browse an enormous range of stickers, including shapes, typographic stickers, emojis, illustrations, frames, and so many more in the “Stickers” panel. Use the “Themes” panel to discover sets of design assets from other themes at any time.
Did you know? You can create your own backgrounds and stickers for your photo book and upload them to Mixbook Studio™.
Fun, functional extras for your photo book
The intuitive suite of design tools in Mixbook Studio™ mean the options for the contents of a photo book are limitless. With the basic building blocks of photos, text, backgrounds, and stickers, you can create any custom page imaginable! Here are some suggestions.
Table of contents
It can be smart to include a table of contents at the beginning of a photo book. They’re especially helpful for longer photo books with distinct sections of contents. You can (and should) design your custom table of contents to complement the overall aesthetic of the book.
Read more in our guide: How to create a table of contents.
Maps
The Mixbook Maps feature is an awesome addition to your design arsenal. You can create a custom map of up to 10 locations, anywhere in the world. Make a world map showing the flight path for your epic global adventures, or zoom in on your little home town to plot the places that are special to you. There are seven different styles of maps available, and you can further customize them on the page with stickers, text, and photo layers.
Art & memorabilia
The “Photos” panel in Mixbook Studio™ isn’t strictly just for photographs. You can also upload scanned copies of artwork and memorabilia to augment the contents of a photo book. This is an essential technique when you’re creating an art portfolio or kids’ art book.
You might scan souvenirs from your travels, such as a wine-stained menu from a memorable restaurant, collection of shells from the beach, or ticket stubs. Scan a section of your lace wedding veil, Grandma’s hand-written recipe cards, or sweet personal messages from a holiday card.
Related: How to Enhance Your Year-in-Review Photo Book with Memorabilia
Best practices for structure & flow
Knowing what goes into a photo book is just the first step. You also need to consider the best ways to put the contents of a photo book in place in a way that feels “designed” and thoughtful. Your contents should ultimately tell a cohesive story as you flip from cover to cover, whether it’s the story of your engagement, your family history, or just a recollection of the fun times you had this summer.
Here are our top tips for give the contents of a photo book optimal structure and flow:
- Start with a theme: Mixbook’s photo book themes are designed to give your custom contents a cohesive flow within any chosen aesthetic style. They’re all fully customizable, but we do recommend following their prompts. Check out our comprehensive guide to choosing the perfect photo book theme.
- Use Auto-Create: Our Auto-Create tool uses AI-powered technology to place your photos into a book theme in a way that makes sense.
- Layouts: The layouts of your photo book provide structure and flow to the contents. Experiment with layouts, or use the Auto-Layout tool to make it even easier.
Ready to create a photo book?
What goes into a photo book? Nothing less than the best memories of your amazing life, the people you love, and the experiences you’ve shared. When you’re ready to put those all into the pages of a tangible keepsake you’ll treasure forever, head over to Mixbook.
