A modern baby book

Names are gifts handed down by an older generation to the younger, passing down from one generation to the next. When I was young when I was a child, my mother shared an interesting account of my grandma. When my parents discovered they were expecting me as their first child, My grandmother questioned what I would be named. She then said, “I hope you don’t give her a made-up name.” I recall her beautiful but fierce Southern voice when I tell this tale! What she was referring to was that she requested that my parents provide me with a family name. They did. They called me Rachel Elizabeth LaCour, a name that has so many stories.

When my husband and I discovered we were expecting the baby, we instantly began talking about names. Do we want one girl? If yes, perhaps we’d name the girl Madeline or my mom’s middle initial or Elizabeth my name, which is mine? Could we have a boy? If yes, we knew precisely which character we’d choose for the boy: Joseph Edward Niesen. What’s the best part? On September 14, 20,15, we welcomed our first son. We named him Joseph Edward Niesen, a name with a story to go with it and a name that has spanned generations.

When we returned with our son after he was discharged from the hospital, we wandered through our bodies that were sleep-deprived, recording his very first moments using our smartphones and DSLR cameras. While the Instagram feeds were full of baby photos, however, we sensed that something was missing. We set out to design the perfect baby book different from anything else we’ve ever seen.

The Story of You

There are many exciting ways for families to record, preserve, and remember their child’s achievements. The Baby Books are accessible both in digital as well as analog formats to fit any family’s needs. With apps and scrapbooks, there are a lot of choices parents can use to record their children’s firsts, favorite moments, and milestones throughout the year. However, we wanted something different for our son’s book. Instead of a traditional baby book, We wanted a book that the whole family could enjoy for many years. We wanted something fresh and classic that could last over the years. The most important thing was that we were looking for the perfect baby book that could be a narrative – one that could tell the family’s history and make our son feel part of more than himself. We were searching for a treasured inheritance.

We chose MILK Books. We were enthralled by their simple, classic style and their layout templates that make photos the center of the page. When it was time to pick the name and theme for our son’s newborn album, we found ourselves instantly attracted to our family’s history. Instead of just recording his milestones, we wanted to show him the people who preceded him. We tried to keep him in mind that his story began before his. We decided to pick the title of our son’s book for babies…

Namesake.

Name’sake`
n. 1. A person who has the same name as another, particularly one that is named in respect to another.

It was quite a pleasure to select the theme and title for our son’s book. The procedure of curating, digitizing, and designing started. Beginning with pictures of our son and his family, we presented our son as the “main character” of the story. We then selected the most important images from our archives of family members, and we made use of PhotoShelter to store our main library. We picked photos that highlighted the members of our family who we named our son. In chronological order, the family took our boy to meet his grand and great-grandparents Joseph Alcide LaCour and Joseph Franklin Shuffield. By mixing modern digital images of him, we have created connections that connect the past with the present. In addition, he’ll get to spot the similarities between his parents and his ancestors and the genetics of his family!

Selecting family photos that tell an interesting story.

The telling of a story through pictures is about choosing photos that go beyond displaying people and places. Images that record significant moments, particularly milestones, can bring the book to life. We were looking for our boy’s infant book with pictures that held memories associated with them. Although there’s no way to curate photos, we did our best to fill these seven fundamental categories:

Portraits, Scene Setters, Interaction pictures, authentic emotions, Hero Photos, transitions, and a closing Photo.

• Portraits present the main characters in the story, including the namesakes of our sons.
• Scene Setters give an element of context to the narrative and create a sense of location.
• Interaction images illustrate the bonds between people. We selected pictures of family members having fun as well as interacting with one another.
• Honest Emotion exposes the personalities of people and helps bring my son’s namesake to life.
• Transitions depict characters from the story advancing between chapters. In this instance, careful chronological sequence allowed us to create an account of our ancestors.
• Hero Pictures are typically the most important elements of a story. They usually concentrate on the principal character. In this instance, the majority of these images of heroes are bigger in the arrangement of the text.
• The final Photos signal that the story is at an end. The closing photo doesn’t have to be a literal image or even evocative.

The Importance of Good Captions.

As this is a photo book, it was important not to go overboard with the text. Simple, meaningful captions were the best. They provide the essential information concerning “who, what, when, where, why and how?” With the help of chronology as a guide in our research, we were able to create our son’s book in the story of a series, going between the generations of “Joseph Edwards” and the next! Each page in the book contains text, often brief captions, with dates that are included.

The less-than-perfect photos are the best.

Do you use Photoshop or not Photoshop? That is the answer! We chose not to “fix” or “correct” any of our old family photographs. When we looked them up as a whole, we realized how much we enjoyed the texture, grain of film, and rawness of the pictures printed in the original. The imperfections make the moments seem more authentic and more authentic.