A High School Graduation Legacy Album

Feeling “behind” in your memory keeping efforts?

Overwhelmed by the volume of photos you have trapped on your phone and various other places?

What if I shared one project that could relieve you of your guilt and provide a valuable keepsake for your kid(s)?

Keep reading folks…

This project has been percolating in my mind for years and I’m so happy to have finally turned my ideas into reality.

What is this magical book that will both make you feel better and your kid feel special and loved?

Essentially, it is a love letter to your child (or insert the special person of your choice) filled with personal stories and highlight images from their life. I’ve been writing letters to my kids on their birthdays for the last 18 years. Maybe you have journal notes. Or maybe you have nothing but could write a few sentences, guided by your photos, about your kid for each year of their life. Or maybe you just let the images tell the story.

The idea is to create highlight reel of the first 18 years of life, no big deal 😅, let’s break it down…

DESIGN STRATEGY

There are so many different design directions you could take this, but here is the formula I followed to create my book that I gave to my daughter when she graduated from high school last year:

Layout 1 | Year/Age + Highlight Photo

Layout 2 + 3 | Birthday letter + a favorite image with me and the birthday girl from that year. Some letters extended to a 3rd page and I added a large image on page 4.

Layout 4 | Full bleed photo + 9 grid of images with dates beneath

Repeat 18x. Yes, this was tedious. I took my time and worked on it, bit by bit, for about 6 months. Each year looked something like this…

BONUS POINTS | Drop in a few videos via qr code to add a bit of life to the stories and images! “

A Word About…

CHOOSING PHOTOS

In order to avoid the analysis paralysis that can result from trying to choose your favorite photos, I let feelings be my guide. I wanted the book to tell the story of family connection, love, belonging and happiness. Photos that spoke to those feelings made the cut.

SELECTING A BOOK VENDOR

I knew I wanted this book to be high quality. As much as I would have loved to select a layflat album with a beautiful embossed cover, I also needed a decent number of pages and 100 pages was just not going to be enough. I selected a MILK Premium Photo Book Album that struck the perfect balance of premium quality and page quantity.

With a 160 page maximum I did the math: 160 pages/18 years = 8.8 pages/year.

So 4 layouts/year with a few extra pages of buffer for intro/outro pages. This calculation is what allowed me to arrive at the design formula detailed above.

Still not sure how to start?

IDENTIFY YOUR REASON WHY

I had three goals for this project:

GOAL #1 | Share stories and my love via my annual birthday letter

GOAL #2 | Capture the feelings of her childhood

GOAL #3 | Create one keepsake she could take to her first apartment after college

Rather than include every memory, I wanted her to feel what her childhood was like from a few representative photos. And rather than burden her with 18 photo albums from her very well-documented life, I wanted her to have a reasonable tangible memory book to remind her of the first chapter of family life. Being clear about these three goals helped guide both my photo selections and book vendor.

For everyone feeling behind in their memory keeping, making one book like this for each kid at graduation could really check the box. Watching my daughter read through every letter and laugh at old photos was one of my favorite moments of the year!