We all know that having galleries around town – hair salons, wedding boutiques, doctor’s offices, etc, is great advertising. It is something we need to start doing more of at Left Turn Studio. We also know that having prints and frames or canvases done up for all of these locations can work out to be quite an expense. I would love to have huge canvases of our work all over Portland. While we want to have nice galleries everywhere, often times it just is not financially feasible.

Last week I was speaking with Sarah Calahan, over at Asuka Book in Bend, Oregon. We spoke about how to use inexpensive, press-printed books as marketing portfolios. For photographers and studios just starting to offer digitally designed albums, the difference between flush mount albums and press-printed ‘coffee table books’ is often confusing. Quite simply it is the difference between the way they are printed. Press-printed books are printed using the same fundamental technology that is used to print photography books you buy in the book store (on a printing press). Flush mount albums are made with actually photographic prints, pretty much like the prints you have hanging on the wall at your studio.

Asuka Book Stock Soft Cover Book Photo(Asuka Book Soft Cover Book Stock Photo)

In the, not-so-distant, past there were huge differences in the quality of printing you could achieve by moving from press print to photographic print. Press printed books weren’t quite as sharp, there were sometimes problems of color consistency. Asuka Book was one of the leaders in pushing press-printed technology to where it is today. Current press printed books are stunning, rivaling photographic prints on many levels. Asuka is now using a 6 color press (versus a 4 color press) and the prints used in the albums truly are stunning. And one place where press printed albums find their niche is in price. They cost about half as much as a similar-sized flush mount albums.

asuka2

(Additional Asuka Book offerings)


You can see where I am going here. By designing a series of promotional albums and strategically rotating them throughout your market, you can inexpensively reach a very wide audience without breaking the bank. When you design samples, you might want to take a look back at our sample guidelines blog post.

Asuka Book offers a 50% off first sample discount as well as 25% off on three subsequent books.

Fundy is creator of the Fundy Album Builder and other workflow tools and partner of Left Turn Studio. You can see the work of Left Turn Studio at www.leftturnstudio.com and download free trials of Fundy software at www.fundysos.com.

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