The launch of Mixbook Maps has opened up a whole new dimension of storytelling through photo books. Customized maps offer a creative way to showcase a unique set of meaningful locations and journeys, while also complementing the aesthetics of your photo book.
Your photos immortalize special moments while captions and other typographic elements provide more details. Custom maps can give all those stories a sense of place, bringing everything together as a multifaceted memory-keeper.
Another great thing about Mixbook Maps is that they’re really fun to design. We have seven different map styles to choose from and countless ways to edit them before dragging and dropping into your photo book. There, you can optionally layer your maps with photos, text, and stickers in the storytelling playground of Mixbook Studio™.
Here are some creative ideas for adding maps to your next Mixbook.
Use maps to structure a travel book
Adding maps to travel photo books is a no-brainer. You probably used real-life maps, whether paper or digital, during your travels. Copying those maps into your photo book—and giving them a makeover—simply makes sense as a way to document your travel experiences. Custom maps are also a great way to give your book structure and enhance its storytelling power.
For any vacation with multiple stops and points of interest, for example a road trip, epic bike ride, backpacking adventure, or a cruise, structure the book around multiple maps. Here’s how:
- Plot your full trip on a single map. Mixbook Maps allow up to 10 locations, which you can connect with a line or road design. Blow this map up to full page size (or a two-page panoramic spread) at the beginning of your book to introduce your itinerary.
- Create a new map for each location/stop. Zoom in so you can also plot key points of interest and places that you visited, which will match the photos you’re featuring in the book. Use these maps as “chapter headers” for sets of photos from each location.
- Optionally add lines or arrows connecting photos to places on the map, or overlay thumbnail photos on the map.
- Decorate the maps with stickers that match your mode of transport (e.g. plane, car, bike, bus), your activities (e.g. binoculars, hiking boots, food and drinks, beach motifs), and local flora and fauna.
- End the book with another full-page map plotting your journey from the final location back to your home.
Related: How to Create the Perfect Travel Photo Book: 7 Must Haves
Plot the sweetest memories of a romantic journey
Maps can be fantastic additions to photo books dedicated to memories of a romance, whether it’s a Valentine’s Day gift, anniversary project, engagement album, or just because. Create a beautiful, meaningful map to feature in your book that shows all the locations of importance throughout your relationship. These might include:
- The place you first met
- Where you had your first date
- Where you were when you first said “I love you”
- Memorable getaway destinations
- The place you got engaged
- Your wedding venue
- Your honeymoon destination
- The birthplaces of your children
- Your first (and the rest) of the homes you have shared together
Mark all of these points on a map, with text or a key to explain what they all mean. If you can’t fit all the places on one map, make a matching set of maps and lay them out in a grid composition. Enhance the map with heart-shaped stickers or other stickers that match your romantic milestones.
Use maps to document your family history
For many families, especially those living in North America, a family history is one of dynamic movements across the world. If your genealogy research has revealed details of travel or migration, whether globally, nationally, or regionally, then plotting the details on a map is a great way to tell the story.
You can customize a Mixbook Map to be zoomed out and show locations on all the continents of the world, or zoomed in all the way to a city street. This versatility means you can document any family history—no matter how complex—in your genealogy book.
Tip: Sepia and black-and-white maps are both fitting style choices for a family history book.
On the road to graduation… or retirement
Pathways to graduation can often be plotted on a map. A series of schools or colleges in different locations. Study-related travels, such as a year abroad or internship in a new city. The exciting journey from graduation to a new job. All these milestones can be joined together across a custom map, illustrating a journey in a way that beautifully augments a graduation photo book.
The same is true of many careers. If you’re putting together a retirement photo book—a celebration of a lifetime of hard work and life experiences—consider adding a custom map. You could list all key work locations on a single map that represents a career journey. Or, add individual maps of different work locations to illustrate “chapters” of a career.
A map of your life for a year-in-review
Year-in-review photo books are always a popular way to document your day-to-day life along with the year’s milestones and happiest moments. All those moments occurred someplace, so why not put those places on a custom map?
Your map points don’t need to be far from home. You could make a map of your own region or town, with a sticker marking your own home as the central hub. Plot all the places where you spent the most time this year, such as the kids’ school, their favorite playground, your go-to takeout spot, family and friends’ houses, and the trailhead for a beloved local hike.
Here are some other year-in-review ideas that could be memorialized in map-form:
- Big vacations and weekend getaway destinations
- Locations for birthday and anniversary celebrations
- A long drive to visit old friends
- Your workplace, after starting a new job this year
- The pet shelter where you adopted your new furry family member
- The ballpark where your kid hit his first home run
- The pumpkin patch three towns over that you always go to because it’s the best!
How will you use Mixbook Maps?
Mixbook Maps is one of our newer features, and we’d love for you to share all the creative ways you’ll use it! To share your customer story, reach out to hello@mixbook.com.
