Want to know what’s one of the biggest perks of having a smartphone? It’s that every time you’re on vacation, you’ll always have a camera on you to capture those unforgettable moments.  Plus, with digital photography, you won’t have to wait as long for your film to be developed. In fact, you don’t have to wait at all!

Another bonus when it comes to digital photography is that you never have to worry about ‘bad photos’ (blurry, off centred or otherwise). You can simply delete them off your device – keeping only the images that pass muster.

However, if there is a downside to digital photography, it would be the fact that more often than not, your priceless travel photographs remain trapped in the SD cards, hard drives, and computers – gathering digital dust, rather than being shared with others.

That is where Pixajoy comes in with its easy to use editor and wide array of photo books – perfect for displaying photos from your exciting adventures. After over a decade of creating layouts and templates for different types of photo books – including ones specifically for travel, we’ve picked up quite a few tricks to make the best-looking photo book ever. 

That being said, we thought we’d share some of those tricks and pointers with you to help you make the perfect photo book!

The Cover

The cover of your photo book plays an important role as it is the first thing people see when they pick it up. The design and cover photos used should act as something akin to a teaser about the book’s content. It’s believed that a well-thought-out cover design can reveal a lot about a book without revealing all of the details. 

So in short, it can be concluded that the cover image serves a greater purpose rather than being purely decoration. They should be able to pique a person’s interest by telling them about what the book entails without the person having to flip over to the first page. 

Our recommendations:

• Use a simple/clean layout (1 photo + text)
• For the cover image, use a scenery shot that depicts the location of the place/what the place is known for (Example: Japan, known for Mt. Fuji, hot springs, Shibuya, Tokyo Tower) 
• Add the name of the place to the cover (i.e. Japan, London, etc…)
• For the cover finishing, we suggest using a matte lamination as it gives off a soft, shine-free appearance. 

Pro Tip: You can also add the name of the place and the year of your visit on the spine of your photo book. Not only does it make it easier for you to recognise them when you place the books on a shelf, but it also looks aesthethically pleasing. 

The First Page

A great way to start your travel photo book is with an intro/info page. These type of pages can consist of anything from an overview of your whole trip, an index page for easy reference, a timeline of your trip (plus itinerary) or even a blub about your thought process when creating the book. 

Depending on your own personal preferences, this page can consist solely of texts (with complimentary fonts for the title and content) or it can have a mix of texts, photos and other graphics (like decorative emojis and stickers). 

Some of the things you might want to consider including on this page: 

• A summary/timeline of your trip.
• A map of the places you visited.
• Your thoughts about the trip or some highlights from the event that you thought was particularly memorable. 
• Some photos from the start of your trip to the end of your trip (sort of like a before/after photo).
• An exciting quote to get readers into the mood or that gives an overview of the contents of the book. 

Fun fact: All of Pixajoy’s hardcover photo books (except for the flush mount) comes with a ‘flyleaf’ page (a page at the front that has nothing printed on it).

Subsequent Pages

If your trip consists of going to multiple places or attractions over the span of a few days, it’s best to give each day its own individual section. This makes it easier for you to organise your photos and determine how many photos/pages you’d like to use for each particular section. 

There are several ways that you can section off your photo book. For example, you could choose to section it by:

• Chronological order of your trip. (i.e. Day 1, Day 2, Day 3…)
• Places/states (London, Manchester, Northumbria…)
• Attractions/Places (Seaside, Mountains, Forests…) 
• By colour (Photos with mostly blues, greens, and whites dominating the picture…)

If you’re looking for a simple and organised way to section your book’s content, then we definitely recommend choosing the chronological order method. Mostly because you’ll have your travel itinerary to help you get organised. 

Pro Tip: You can add text headings to the beginning of each different section of your travel photo book to help you keep track of where to place your photos. (i.e. to ensure you don’t accidentally place photos of attractions in Paris alongside the ones from London by accident). 

Give Context

While the term photo book invokes a mental image of a book filled with nothing but photos (like children’s picture books – just images, no text), adding some text for context to your images is a vital key to making your travel photo books more interesting. 

When we say ‘give context’, we don’t necessarily mean that you need to write paragraphs upon paragraphs of texts. Sometimes a short snippet of your thoughts and feeling when taking the photo or a brief but fun caption that describes the mood of the picture will do.

Get Creative

Besides photos and texts, you can also add other visual elements to make your travel photo book stand out. Things like maps of the places you’ve visited, adding title pages to help readers identify sections at a glance or simple travel quotes for the aesthetics of it all will go a long way in making your travel photo book something people would be reluctant to put down. 

Pro Tip: You can use the scrapbook feature on the Pixajoy editor to add stickers and other design elements into your travel photo books easily. 

Now that we’ve shared with you some design styling tips for your next travel-related photo book, we hope you’ll feel inspired to start printing out photos from your last vacation trips. If you would like to start your travel book today, feel free to visit the Pixajoy website and get right to preserving your good memories for good.