The more confused they are, the deeper that credit card goes into the pocket, purse or clutch. How are album companies and photographers confusing clients? By trying to redefine the word PAGE.
Challenge: Go to any 5th grader in any country where basic literacy is prevalent, hand them a book and ask them how many pages are in it. They’ll instantly go to the back, look for the last page number and tell you. Do the same with a magazine, same with a photo book, and the answer will be the same. Give them an album and ask them how many pages in it, and they’ll start counting them, just like in a book. ONE, turn the page, TWO, THREE, turn the page, etc.
Thank you to Finao for their album shots.
With my software I speak with a lot of album vendors about their products. I talk with them about album sizes and album pages. One question I like to ask them is the possibility of doing flush mount albums with only ten pages in them. Ten pages is a great length for portrait albums.
Some companies will say “SURE, that is our base size.”
“Really,” I say, “just ten pages, ten sides?”
“Oh, no, ten pages, twenty sides.”
“Uh, what planet did this guy grow up on?” I think to myself.
Thank you to Finao for their album shots.
So, I thought. Maybe it is some book binding terminology that I’m just not aware of. So I hit Wikipedia, bookbinding sites, the Oxford English Dictionary, etc. The only time I can ever find a PAGE defined as two sides is when you “rip a page out of a book.” When you rip a page out of a book, you have one piece of paper with two sides, so one page of the book. But in all other cases, a page is defined as one side of a piece of paper in a book. And the great thing is that every lay person on the street knows what it means. You say, “Hey you want a 40 page album?” and they know exactly what you are talking about.
Now, the next one. The leaf. Now this is really not that bad. Most album companies refer to a leaf as a spread of two pages. This is OK, because it is pretty apparent. But, actually album companies use of term leaf really is a bit confusing. A leaf is defined as one big piece of paper that is folded in half to be used in a book. Leaves aren’t use in paperback books anymore. Single pages are just glued together. But if you pick up a magazine, and open it up to the middle spread and pull that sucker out, you have a leaf. Instead of 2 pages, you really have 4 pages. So with press printed books a leaf is actually 4 pages. But with flush mounts, a leaf is glued to hard stock and we only see two pages. Pretty dang clear! Are you confused yet? Because I am, and I’m writing this dang thing.
So what are we to do? How do we define two pages that we see when we open an album? How do we define this when we open a magazine. What’s that called? Oh, a spread. A magazine spread! “Did you see that double page spread in Vogue?” Most people know this. Everyone in the magazine industry knows this. Why not go with what people know?
Thank you to ProDPI for their press book shots.
So, here’s my challenge to all you album companies out there, and all you photographers out there. When talking about albums, use terms that everyone already knows. When you open an album you see a “spread” with one “page” on the left and one “page” on the right. If you ever, ever get confused as to what a page is, just walk into any elementary school, hand any kid an album and ask them how many pages are in it.
Fundy
Fundy is the creator of the design software Fundy Album Builder, proofing software Fundy Album Proofer and the soon to be released pricing application, Price Builder. Click here for a free trial.
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10 Comments at "Photographers and Album Companies Stop Confusing Clients!"
Hear Hear!
Just to add to the confusion however, I never thought of a “leaf” as being a “spread”. I only ever imagined a leaf to be one of those things that you grab as you “leaf through a book”. One leaf has two sides (a.k.a. pages). One spread has two pages face to face. One leaf has two pages back to back.
I got so confused when looking at supplier statements of how many leaves/pages/spreads/sides they had (which were often inconsistent for apparently the same thing) that I decided to talk in terms of sides and leaves rather than pages (as some albums only have double spreads and others start with a right hand page).
So my standard album has x sides. And if people want to upgrade their album a digital upgrade is described as “extra pages (per 5 leaves/10 sides)”. Note the reference to pages so the client can see what I’m selling
. I would rather talk in terms of just the word “pages” but I would end up confusing myself too!
I had a simple view of it all before I became a photographer and was much happier for it. ;D
I agree, we decided to make things easier for our clients by calling each side a page just like in a book or magazine. I never understood why album companies are different.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!
So sick of seeing photographers, mostly influenced by dumb album companies, confusing the meaning of the word page.
The best way to avoid confusion is to NOT USE THE WORD PAGE. Look it us, it means both a side of a leaf and the whole leaf. You can never be right and always be wrong. Stop using the work altogether. Call it a side, 1/2 spread, 1/2 page or make something up that’s clever and branded.
Clever and branded are fine for industry insiders but still confusing to clients. A page is a page. Period.
Thank you Fundy! A page is a page. WTF is a leaf? Something I rake in the fall? A new car from Toyota? Tony Bisson said it best: “…make up something that’s clever and branded” HAHA – yeah, clearly what the album companies have done – make up something (However ‘confusing’ and ‘inane’ are better choices that “clever”)
Yes! Industry jargon is a pet peeve of mine (I remember when the formal photos shot after the ceremony were called “altar returns”) and the page/side thing has always particularly bugged me. We need to think like our clients and communicate based on their reality, not that of our suppliers. Thanks!
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