This joint discount between West Coast Albums and Modern Album Designs is for NEW CUSTOMERS ONLY, so hurry up because this deal is too good to last!

For the first 20 new customers, they will receive 20% OFF their album design (regular or Mad One) and 20% OFF an album from West Coast Albums.

Use the promo code 20OFFMADWEST to get this deal!

Terms & Conditions:

-  New customers only (for both companies)
-  Limit one per customer
-  Limit of 20 coupons redeemed
-  Cannot be combined with any other promos
-  Cannot be applied towards studio samples
-  Expires Dec. 31, 2011

Don’t worry, you won’t be graded. We just want to see if you truly know Modern Album Designs. You never know…there might be something for you when you answer this. Shhh!!! (Don’t tell them I told you anything!)

We’ve designed many albums using Photojunction to satisfy our customers who request Queensberry matted albums (among others). While our weapon of choice is Photoshop, Photojunction ain’t so bad. We admit, we have had several annoying moments with the software, but when it boils down to it, we always accept the challenge!

Designing  matted albums with Photojunction IS challenging. We’ve been so used to freely designing flushmount albums that matted is something foreign to some of our designers. It really forces us to be creative, even with the limited effects and designs we would like to perform.

Some examples of these challenges are:

• freely placing more than four images per side
• making one image larger than the rest
• tightly spaced images
• adding some flair like: gradients, masking, font techniques, opacity borders, and embellishments among others.

You see, some of the albums we design with Photojunction requires a template. Which means, you just drag and drop images on each side. But, the challenge of that is which mattes to use and what image to put in where.

But Photojunction isn’t just for matted albums. They also have the ability to design an album without using a template. Watch this short video Photojunction created to clearly understand some of the benefits using this software:

Let’s pause to think about how cool this idea is: Here’s a photographer who practices what she preaches – that is, the importance of professional photography in everyone’s lives. By being “in front of the camera”, Jennifer probably learns a lot about the experience of being photographed and what’s it’s like in her own client’s shoes. And by making an album from the yearly sessions, she’s able to cherish the images of her family growing together. (And we can imagine that these albums would easily convince potential clients to do a family portrait session!)

Whenever we get a request to design a photographer’s own family or wedding album, we’re always honored (and a little nervous), but it let us know that we’re doing something right!

Thanks Jennifer for trusting in us!

We have another album of the week! We have featured Impulse Photography this month because of her amazing photography style, and her ability to capture her couple’s emotions. Now, Impulse Photography is ourAlbum Feature of the Week!

What makes this different is the format of the album. Calendar style is a big trend that’s been happening lately. It’s different, new, and fresh…something that not a lot of brides and grooms have seen before.

Look at Sonia and Joe’s album. You will see what we mean!

Every Wednesday, for the past three weeks, the city of Sunnyvale holds a Summer Concert Series in the downtown where we reside. Like clockwork, they close the streets at 3PM with barricades and “Do Not Enter Signs”. The locals start setting up their respected territories and spots with folding chairs, umbrellas, and blankets to get the best seat of the event.

Every year, a man we call “The Snake Man (he wears rubber snakes around his neck),” sets up his spot with his folding chair at the corner where the arches for the Historic Murphy Avenue sign was placed after the renovation. He never misses a day.

Vendors and small businesses come to set up their booths for the event. Other than the eateries we already have in the street, food trucks, caterers, and more make their way and position themselves in the street for the evening’s event. Little boutiques  sell scarves, jewelries, hats, shirts, and more also join the fun during the festivities.

At 6PM, as the sun is setting, the band of the week starts and plays their set. May it be jazz, funk, disco, top 40, r&b, and more… the locals of Sunnyvale flock to join and have a good time. Dancers will dance and sing along to the music, local patrons will eat and watch, and kids will play…and us? We get the best seat of the house! We get snacks from the street and we can watch the show from above!

Here at Modern Album Designs, we are lucky to work with many great photographers and are honored to be entrusted to create album designs for their clients. Suffice to say, we have seen our share of breathtaking imagery. However, there are some photographers’ works who always stops us on our track, and makes everyone at the office huddle over the monitor to go “oooh” and “aaahhh”. Silvana from Impulse Photography is definitely one of those photographers. Take a look at her website and her blog, and you’ll see why. In an age where actions, presets and copycat poses create cookie-cutter wedding images, the work of Silvana is fresh and original. Her modesty and unwillingness to submit to prevailing trends certainly earns her our deepest respect!

In a world where great customer service is very hard to come by, I am so thankful to have found Modern Album Designs.  Being a bit of the control freak that I am, I had a tough time initially letting go of the design aspect of my books.  However, all of that fear dissipated when I viewed my first designs with MAD.  I knew right away that this was going to be a good thing!  Over the years, they have proven to not disappoint, and I have gotten a lot of my time back.  Chung and the staff are superb at what they do, and I’m always amazed at how fast their turnaround time is!  I take great care in producing my images, and so I would only trust Modern Album Designs to showcase them in the most spectacular way!

]]> http://modernalbumdesigns.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/feature-photographer-impulse-photography/feed/ 0 modernalbumdesigns MAD_Testimony_Logo http://modernalbumdesigns.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/its-easy-being-green-labor-of-love-with-a-green-passion/ http://modernalbumdesigns.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/its-easy-being-green-labor-of-love-with-a-green-passion/#comments Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:37:13 +0000 modernalbumdesigns http://modernalbumdesigns.wordpress.com/?p=656 ]]> There are a ton of album vendors out there who love what they do and believe in their products, and one in particular stands out before our eyes: Wild Magnolia Design.

What makes this album company so unique?

It’s simple — Wild Magnolia is, by far, the first eco-friendly wedding album to hit the market today. From paper choice to album covers, Wild Magnolia is not messing around when it comes to being green. Each album is made from green, recycled material, and hand-crafted from scratch. So you could very well be helping the environment while getting a high-quality product.The album covers are either made of 100% hemp, or Dupioni and Peace silk, whichever you prefer.

Owner Rebecca Shostak, founded Wild Magnolia Design back in 2008, and explained to us being a green believer, there is a need for an eco-friendly wedding album product. Thus, this labor of love is born.

If you want a unique, high-quality album that is environmentally friendly that will last a lifetime, Wild Magnolia is your best bet!

So, in honor of New York, here’s a sample of an album we designed for Leigh Miller. The union of Gabe and Aaron.

The clean and modern style really captures the details and the emotions of the event. Your eyes are surely going to stay focus on the photographs that Leigh took.

Without further ado, here’s Gabe and Aaron’s book:

FotoFusion is a new software that’s been creeping up in the photography industry. Known as a “digital scrap-booking” software, FotoFusion is much more than just that. It is a software that is user-friendly and versatile. It offers a lot of high-quality tools and features, and has a complete tool set available to help with laying out spreads i an album.

At first being so used to Photoshop, FotoFusion was so foreign and difficult to understand. But if you just play around with it, you can pick it up quickly.

Importing photos is such a breeze! Under the ‘Images’ window, just copy the path where your photos are coming from and paste it on the bar.

The design features are simple. FotoFusion provides multiple options to set up collages and jumbles. There are also some options of resizing the images more freely just by dragging your mouse without ruing the aspect ratio. Once you drag the image inside the canvas, you will see the image has a default boarder. Using the ‘Frame’ window, you can easily manipulate the setting of the image by removing the boarder, changing the color, adding a gradient, or changing the image’s opacity.

FotoFusion is easy to use! If you haven’t used any design software before, this could be the one for you. This will help you show any arrangement of pictures with ease.

(images by geardiary.com)

We pretty much just scratched the surface. There’s really more to FotoFusion, and you will be amaze by the many possibilities you can create with this software. We encourage you to try it out, see if you like it, and let us know if it works  for you!