Design cannot begin on a partial order. That sounds obvious and it is still the single commonest reason a gift arrives later than the person who ordered it expected — not a slow studio, but an order sitting at the front of the queue missing one field.
Six things unlock an order. Five of them are not photographs, and most of those five take under a minute to answer.
The six, and what each one blocks
| What we need | What it blocks if missing | When we need it |
|---|---|---|
| The photographs | Everything | Day one |
| Who it is for, and who you are to them | The tone of the writing | Day one |
| Five specific facts | The captions | Day one |
| Names, in the spelling they use | Printing, permanently | Before the proof |
| The delivery address, and whose it is | Dispatch | Before dispatch |
| The date it has to arrive by | Whether we take the order at all | Before you pay |
The last one is worth reading twice. If a date is genuinely unreachable we will say so rather than take the order, and we can only say so if we know the date. Ordering for a fixed date →
What each product actually needs
They are not equal. A print pack has no design stage at all, so it needs almost nothing; an album is the largest thing we make and wants the most.
| Product | Photographs | Words | Decisions before we start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Print pack | 30 or more | Optional captions | None |
| Card deck | One per card | One line per card, optional | Deck size |
| Photo diary | A handful | Very few | Page count |
| Photo magazine | About four per page | Five facts minimum | Page count |
| Hardcover album | About four per page | Five facts minimum | Format, then page count |
For a 16-page magazine that is roughly 64 photographs. Send more than the arithmetic suggests, because a layout with choices is a better layout. How to choose which ones →
The three people forget
Whose address it is. If the gift ships straight to the recipient, their address goes in at checkout rather than yours — and their phone number with it, because that is the number a courier calls. Half of the delivery problems in this business start with the giver’s number on a parcel going to somebody else’s house.
The exact spelling. Shortened names, married names, a grandmother whose name is spelled two ways inside the same family. Print is permanent in a way a phone screen is not, and this is the one mistake that cannot be fixed after the fact without a reprint.
Anything that must not go in. An ex-partner, a relative nobody speaks to, a photograph the recipient hates of themselves. Saying so on day one costs a sentence. Saying so at the proof costs a revision round, which on a bad week costs a dispatch.
What you do not have to do
You do not have to write the captions. Send facts — a place, a date, what actually happened, the thing that went wrong. The writing is included. Do you write the captions? →
You do not have to sort, crop or rename anything. Chronological order is plenty.
You do not have to send them in one go, although it helps. What does not help is sending them across four days in six batches, because nothing can start until the set is closed.
Frequently asked
How much do you actually need before work starts? The photographs, who it is for, and enough facts to write from. The rest can follow within a day, except the format on an album, which has to be settled first.
Is a rough set of photographs enough to begin? Yes, if you tell us it is the final set. Design starts when the set closes, so an open one holds the order even though the files have arrived.
What if I genuinely have nothing to say about the photos? Then say that. A book with plain factual captions is a real choice and it reads better than invented sentiment.
Do I need to decide the page count immediately? For a magazine, no — count your usable photographs first. For an album, the format has to be fixed before anything is laid out, because every spread is built to the proportion.
Can somebody else send the material? Yes, and it is common. Name one person as the point of contact so approvals do not arrive from two directions. Ordering on behalf of someone else →
Getting it good, rather than merely started
Everything above is the floor. It gets an order moving and produces a competent object. What separates competent from right is a brief — the structure, the images that must be large, the first and last page — and that is twenty minutes of your time, not two. How to brief an album →
The message you can send in one go
Copy this, fill it in, and the order does not stall:
Photo magazine, 24 pages. For my sister Ananya — spelled with one N in the middle. Twenty-six photographs attached, that is the final set. Five things: we grew up in Dehradun, she moved to Bangalore in 2022, she once drove us into a ditch outside Mussoorie, she calls me Bhaiya only when she wants something, and this is for her birthday on the 14th. Ship to her, address and number below. Please leave out anything with her ex in it.
Under a hundred and twenty words, and it answers all six.
Part of our guide to ordering a personalised gift. See also: sending photos without losing quality and reordering something you gave before.
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