If you’re looking for a gift that’s creative and meaningful, a personalised photo book ticks all the right boxes. Perhaps you plan to give it to a loved one for a special occasion (they’re perfect for birthdays and anniversaries!). Or maybe this will be a gift for yourself, just because. Either way, photo books are the perfect mix of heartwarming, thoughtful, and inexpensive. And besides that, you’ll have plenty of fun letting your artistic side run wild as you design it.
Best of all, living in the age of the smartphone means that leafing through the pages of your photo book is now more immersive than ever. With VideoBook, you can seamlessly add video content to your photo book experience by using printed QR codes to view videos on your smartphone. VideoBook is unique in that it’s the only photo book service that provides a one-stop shop for designing your album layout, uploading videos and adding filters, generating permanent QR codes, and printing and delivering your finished product.
If you’re intrigued by the thought of adding videos to your own custom-made photo album but don’t know where to begin, keep reading for a few ideas of themes you may wish to try. Remember, the only limit is your imagination!
Personalised Holiday Photo Book
Whether it’s a family holiday with all the kids, a romantic couples’ getaway, or a solo trip across Europe, these are vibrant memories you’ll want to be able to pick up and relive for years to come. Arrange your photospreads to provide a visual itinerary of your trip. Track your whimsical adventure through Paris from Day 1, when you can’t wait to visit the Louvre, Montmartre, and Versailles… to Day 10 when all you want to do is drink café au lait by the Seine and people-watch.
Fill your photo book with movement and sound by adding video content. Whether it’s a calming panoramic video of the turquoise Aegean Sea outside your B&B in Mykonos or a passionate tango show you caught in Buenos Aires, videos will revive the multisensory details of your travels that photos miss, making you feel like you’re really there.
A Hen Night to Remember
Of course, great memories can happen closer to home as well. A photo book is a fab way to immortalize all the adventures you’ve had with your girls. Celebrate your bestie’s wedding by getting all the bridesmaids together ahead of time to share photos and videos of your best times together. A personalised photo book with video QR codes makes an excellent group gift for a hen night, where all the guests can provide a memory or two.
Tell the story of your friendship: from your primary school days to your gap year interrailing to the whole gang tossing their caps at graduation. Have each bridesmaid record a selfie video where she wishes the bride-to-be happiness as she enters her new phase of life. For the piece de resistance, get the whole squad together to sing a song or perform a dance in the bride-to-be’s honour.
Or, if you want to hold off until the wedding, you can include memories from the hen night as well. That way the bride can always look back at her final huzzah as a single lady out with the gals!
Document Your Family Ancestry
Family trees are a fascinating and irreplaceable part of your heritage. If you don’t preserve the story of your ancestry it can very quickly be lost. While it can be difficult digitizing old photos belonging to your parents and grandparents, it will be worth the effort when you have an heirloom archiving those memories – as well as the digital files to share with family.
Do you still have your grandparents to tell you stories of their childhood? Record a video of them telling you what they remember from their youth, about their parents and grandparents, and what it was like to grow up back then. Upload a video of your gran reminiscing about her own parents, then place the QR code to that video beside the sepia photo of your great-grandparents on their wedding day.
Baby’s First Year of Life
If you have a little one on the way, that first year of their life will fly. Preserve the precious milestones of their first tummy time, first few steps, first words… Combine professional photos of your newborn with amateur candid photos of your husband asleep cuddling your baby. While you may have hundreds of photos just from the first month, remember to space them out so the album gives the effect of how much your baby grows and changes.
For a baby photo book, including video memories is absolutely necessary. The sound of their first laugh, or the first time they call you “mama,” or even something as simple as your husband and baby playing “peek-a-boo” are treasures you’ll want to be able to pull up and watch again and again.
Showcase Your Passion
Do you have a hobby that’s really more of a calling? Are you an avid birdwatcher? An event planner? Do you spend your weekends baking artisanal pastries? Do you draw, paint, or create artwork of any form? A personalised photo book is an excellent way to showcase your accomplishments, whether as a professional portfolio or as a fascinating talking piece for your coffee table.
There’s a lot of fodder for creative use of video content here as well. For example, if you’re an artist you could include a timelapse of your process of creating a drawing or painting. Or you could include a video of your first gallery opening. Or you could pair off photos of birds you’ve discovered with videos of them in flight.
A Year-Long Family Photo Essay
There is beauty in the everyday as well. A photo book with the theme of a year in your family’s life will remind you of that. Photos depicting the changing seasons as your kids head off to school, or the quiet happiness of family game nights on a rainy evening, can give you a sense of nostalgia for the sweet times that pass by all too quickly.
Intersperse your photos of the day-to-day with videos of standout events. Think birthdays, football matches and dance recitals, visits to the seaside, Halloween costumes, and family reunions for the holidays. At the end of December, have everyone in your family record a video giving their thoughts on the year… and their hopes for the new one. This way, a photo book can become a wonderful time capsule of your life together. You may decide to do one every year!
Do you have any other creative ideas for photo book themes? Click here to learn more about how to get started creating yours!