blueprints: tools for organizational styles

Welcome to the second post in our blueprints: conversations in album design series. Last week, Liz kicked off the series by addressing a scrapper's question that we hear quite frequently when it comes to album planning: "Where do I begin?" Today, I'd like to build on Liz's post by offering up a few tools for organizing your content. As always, Liz and I welcome your questions and comments via our Formspring accounts or the comments section of our blogs:

ask Audrey  |  ask Liz

As Liz noted in her post, once you've decided on a theme for your album, you'll want to also choose an organizational style to help you present your photos, words, and other memorabilia in a way that builds on and enhances the theme of your album. Graphic organizers provide you with a way to visually sort this content; I've developed three organizers for your use.

CHRONOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION
Organizing your album chronologically means putting your content into the order in which it occurs. This could cover a short or long period of time -- the choice is up to you. Let's look at a few options:

• by AGE: An album covering a baby's first year could be organized chronologically, with content divided according to month. The same could apply to a school album, divided by age or grade.
• by DATE: Organizing an album by date gives you a number of possibilities, including years (perfect for content that spans a long period of time, such as a heritage album), months, weeks, or even days. Vacation albums can easily be organized by date (day 1, day 2... or Monday, Tuesday...)
• by TIME: Chronological organization means more than dates on a calendar. You can organize your content according to when an event occurred; this would be especially effective if you are telling a birth story, for example, or something else that strongly relates to when something happened.

Download Chronological graphic organizer
The graphic organizer above allows you to choose a chronological format and record your main information on the page. This gives you a visual picture of your album's content and helps you keep up with all the necessary information. To use it, first decide what chronological framework you want to use (years, days, hours, months, etc); place these labels along the bottom of the timeline. You'll need to determine how you want to space this sequence of labels; perhaps your timeline progresses in 5-year increments or 30-minute intervals -- that format is up to you. Sometimes using a pattern works effectively, but most of the time, your content will determine this sequence and the subsequent timing. The top section of the timeline is for you to include your key events. There's space along the bottom of the graphic organizer for you to include notes and additional details.

CATEGORICAL ORGANIZATION
Organizing your album categorically means choosing categories or topics and breaking your content into "chunks" of information that fits into these categories. Choosing these categories is really an "anything goes" process; because there's an almost limitless variety of options, you may want to do some additional brainstorming to help you come up with your list of categories. Basically, there are two approaches:

• WORDS FIRST: With this approach, you start with the words. The easiest way is to gather this information is to start with a list. Lists are quick and easy to use, and they help you get information down without stressing over style or grammar. Put your topic or theme at the top of the page and then start writing down everything you can think of that you associate with this topic and want to include in your album. Once you've finished your list, you can go back and look for any items that obviously should be grouped together; these groups will help you to determine your categories.
• PHOTOS FIRST: With a photos-first approach, you let themes and topics in your photos suggest the order in which you put your album content. If you are working with physical photos, the easiest way to accomplish this is to find somewhere to spread out your photos (your dining room table, for example) and start arranging them into piles. As you look through the photos, go by what feels natural -- group them according to subject or location. If some piles are really large, go back through them and sort them a second time. Look for common images or expressions, and always be aware of the memories that are triggered while looking through these photos. If your photos are located on your computer, you might want to jot down this information on paper as you browse your files, or you may want to move your photos to other folders and create subfolders for the process.

Download Categorical graphic organizer
The graphic organizer available above allows you to take the information you've brainstormed (either with words or photos) and begin creating your album's categories. Use the graphic organizer to create labels for your photos or to jot notes about stories and journaling to include in your album -- it's a flexible tool that can be used a number of ways.


GEOGRAPHIC ORGANIZATION
Organizing your album content according to geographic location extends beyond the concept of place as a location on a map. While you can easily create an album based on the places you've lived or the towns you visited on your last vacation, you could also broaden your idea of "geography" and use one of these ideas:

• IMPORTANT PLACES: Use key places -- landmarks in your hometown or places that are important to the story of your marriage -- to help you create an interesting album.
• FLOORPLANS: Your home is full of memories, so why not use the floorplan to frame your album content? This applies to other buildings, such as schools, dorms, churches, and more.
• ANATOMY: Why not think of geography in terms of the human body? A map of your brain or your heart could create a compelling album structure.

Download Geographic graphic organizer
Regardless of your definition of "geography," it's best in this instance to start with an image or drawing. The graphic organizer above provides you with space to sketch and label your image, while the column on the right size provides room for additional details and notes.

These tools are a great way to begin wrangling your album content into an order that is meaningful, creative, and focused. Not only does this help you create a cohesive concept, but it can also help keep you on track, which makes finishing your album an easier process. Next week, Liz will share a number of chronologically-organized albums with you, so make sure to check back for the third post in our series.

Comments

[stampin123]

This is brillant and easy! Thanks so much for the great ideas.

[cate]

thanks for the organisers! loving this series of posts, too!

[hannahk]

it would be cool to see how you have used these organisers in real life...

[hsmema]

How I need to be organised, thank you.

[Tracy]

Thank you for helping with Project 365, I am downloading the organizers and getting ready to try and start it over again based on Liz's easy to follow 2 page a day template and your organizational help! Thank you for being there to help those of us who are just not organized but really WANT TO start and finish our Project 365 from last year. I am an avid fan of your blog, you are very captivating! Thanks for all of your helpful assistance.
Hugs from Fort Lauderdale, Florida!