Question re: Chinese-made unusual photo album

[alexmst]

I was wondering if any of you have heard of this:

I was visiting an office in Florida and they had an album out on the coffee table. It was about an inch thick, contained 15 2- page spreads with one photo per page (30 photos total). Each page was heavy inflexible hard plastic, with a laminate over the photo. It reminded me of how credit cards are made with a PVC base and top laminate heat pressed on. Anyway the album was about 9"x12" with a riveted spine that allowed it to lie-flat when open. The photos looked like they were part of the page block - almost like suspended in the hard plastic. The advanatge is it is great for high volume use such as a book handled and flipped through by dozens of people as the photos can't be removed, the pages cannot ber removed, the pages cannot be bent or damaged, and it is impervious to humidity, spilled coffee, fingerprints, doesn't scratch easily. Water poured on would bead and roll off with no seam to get at the photo. Booked weighed about 7 -10 lbs or so. I thought I'd like to use this type album to display some photos in (obviously the photos were integrated into the page at the factory, not inserted by the end-user).

So I asked the guy and he said a lot of people ask about that, but it was made in China and he knows of no place in Toronto or Florida that can make these. He ordered 10 of them when he was in China (he is Chinese) and had his relatives bring them over in their airline luggage to give him as the local place in China he ordered them from doesn't export.

Has anyone heard of a company in the GTA that makes this for display albums? His was done in a medical before/after photo style using photos of his patients he supplied to the factory. I thought it odd that something this well designed and nice would not have worked its way across the Pacific and be done here as well. I asked at a wedding photography place in the GTA that sells professional albums and they had never heard of this.

He said this type album was not uncommon in China, but never caught on outside of China.

The pages are not just laminated photos (which would bend) but each page is a thick block of plastic/acyrlic that is inflexible. If one grabbed a page at either end and tried to bend it it would bow a tiny bit, but would spring back to original shape when one let go)

 

[alexmst]

are you talking about photobooks or something else entirely?

Well photobooks have paper pages bound in a book binding. This was not a photobook in that the pages are not paper but rather a hard, thick plastic block. Each page has a thickness of about 5mm (a little more than 1/8").

I have ordered photobooks in the past, and this is I guess a bit like a photobook only made with 5mm thick hard plastic pages. If you took 4 unembossed credit card thickness pieces of white PVC and stacked them together you would get the thickness and rigidity I speak of. The imagine that piece of PVC is larger - like 9x12". Now imprint the photo on the top of the 9x12 PVC so that it is intigrated into the PVC, perhaps by heat laminate (just as a credit card blank white PVC has an image printed on it eg: bank logo/graphic and then a protective laminate is applied with extreme pressure and heat). Now we have one page. Repeat with reverse side of PVC and end up with 15 pages containing 30 sides. Bind these PVC blocks together to create a flippable "book" where each page is plastic 5mm thick with an image under a transparent permanently applied laminate.

It looks really good. He said it isn't unpopular in China to have these made, though I've never seen one like it here.

 

[adickson]

This thread is useless w/o picutures ...this company that makes these must have a website, right? can you find it on baidu.com or google it? I have seem lot of high quality stuff made in China. It is usually the price you paid and not where it is made.

 

[pilot123]

From what you describe I'm sure I saw those types of albums before and are very popular among Asian wedding photo studios. You can probably get them to make it for you but they're expensive. A few hundred for an album from what I recall.

 

[Ceiling Cat]

There might be the name of the studio that makes these albums on the product itself. You should have checked to see if there was a name or contact info on it. Maybe you can call the office where you saw the album and they can tell you.

 

[alexmst]

There might be the name of the studio that makes these albums on the product itself. You should have checked to see if there was a name or contact info on it. Maybe you can call the office where you saw the album and they can tell you.

I did closely inspect it looking for a name or maker's mark, but there was no mark or name on it anywhere.

From info I have been getting it seems this product is a type of deluxe wedding album-type product popular domestically in China and available there from multiple firms.

It has not caught on over here. Deluxe (traditional) wedding albums in Toronto tend to have photos inserted into thick matte holders like the way a picture is framed. Also digital printing of photobook style where page and photo are one is popular.

Some places in Toronto may have relations with companies in China that can make this and then send it here. I'm guessing the demand in Toronto for this expensive and unusual product is not sufficent to make them locally, and since they can't be assembled by the end user, they can't be bulk imported and sold in stores as each one is made in the factory custom with the photos permanently encased within.

 

[adickson]

There are many wedding photo shops in Richmond Hill that does picture albums. They take the picture here and then ship to China to finish the albums about $1000 though. Check Singtao newspaper and call them up.

 

[Ceiling Cat]

If the product has no makers mark it may be a unique one of a kind special order. The people that are in possession of the album / catalog may know where you can have one done for yourself. Call the office where you saw the album.

 

[alexmst]

Thanks for all the responses!

I talked to a photo studio that does weddings in Toronto (non-Chinese) as well as to a Chinese co-worker and have more info.

In Toronto the norm in the non-Chinese wedding photo field for decades has been for the photo studio to source an album from speciality wedding album manufacturers that often don't sell retail to the public. These albums have mattes made of paper board with recessed windows in them for the photo. The photo is inserted into the window by sliding it in from one edge. In an album with 8x10 windows, about 1/8" on all sides of the photo is covered by the matte that holds the photo in place. This is an elegant traditional solution, and looks very nice to pass to friends who are at one's house to look through. Clean hands are a good idea as the mattes and photos could be affected by fingers with sticky food residue on them.

In recent years another option is photobooks, where a book is digitally produced like one you would buy at Indigo in the photography section. Text blocks can be inserted listing who is in the photo, talking about the couple, etc. Since the papoer pages are thin, many more pages can ve included than in a matted traditional album. The quality of the photos in a photobook is not as high as in a traditional album though. Online sites such as Blurb let you do it yourself with onsite software, though soemtimes higher quality results can be had from one place over another. I had a photobook done once to record a vacation and while OK I wasn't too keen on the quality of reproduction of the photos - they looked like you would find in a $14.00 tourist book of "Toronto in pictures", not a $120 book on the best work of an famous photographer - I think this has to do with the quality of the paper and coatings used.

The Chinese co-worker said that in a traditional Chinese (mainland) wedding, the wedding album is displayed at the wedding for guests to look through. The bride and groom spend a couple of days with a photographer in the weeks prior to the wedding being photographed at attractive sites in the area, often with the bride wearing different outfits. The album is then put together in time for the wedding, and there aren't photos of the actual wedding in the wedding album - there can't be as it is done prior to the start of the wedding. However he added that in Hong Kong, perhaps due to UK influence, often weddings albums have the pics from the wedding in them. It is mainland weddings that generally don't. He said that the PVC thick page laminate design I speak of is popular in mainland China because it is a display book that can take the abuse of a hundred or more people flipping through it, some with dirty hands. The pages won't bend, minor spills of coffee won't stain it, the dirt and food can be wiped off with a wet cloth, the photos can't be removed and he pages can't be torn. So unlike a North American elegant matted album looked at wearing white gloves or just washed hands, the PVC album can take heavy abuse as it no doubt will be subjected to.

So in North America outside of Chinese circles there is little demand for the PVC album as photos from the wedding are included in the wedding album which is viewed by small groups after the fact. For the mainland Chinese community in Toronto, there are Chinese photo studios with contacts in China who can send your photos to China to be made into the PVC album I saw.

Of course I wasn't looking for a wedding album but rather a display album for other types of photos that was very durable, which is what attracted me to this design. One can order the album made with whatever pics one wants in it I guess.

Here is one link I found to a company in China that makes these albums and sells to the public. One sends them photos and they manufacture and ship the album to you. I wasn't looking at spending $1000 to go through a wedding place as I took the photos myself and they are not wedding photos. I was looking at spending 100-300. These site says 120 + shipping or thereabouts. These albums are very heavy though - not so much a hand to hand browsing/passing album as much as a display album sitting on a table that one flips through. As stated the pics are incorporated into the PVC during manufacture, so no point in ordering blanks albums to use as you can't put photos in them yourself after the fact.

http://cnanhua.en.alibaba.com/product/422788203-212071941/Top_Quality_Photography_Album.html

Again, thanks for the help here and in PMs in tracking down what this was. The link is to one factory that makes them, but there are others that do it as well in China.

 

[harrycl]

Just do a google search - flush mount albums toronto - most manuf's sell thro photographers only

 

[alexmst]

Just do a google search - flush mount albums toronto - most manuf's sell thro photographers only

Not that easy as this is not the type of flush mount album sold here in that the pages are PVC blocks and not paper core. the flush mount albums sold by firms in Toronto from what I've seen use paper core not heavy PVC. Also, as you mentioned, many only sell to photo studios, not individuals. But yes, if one wants a flush mount album and is ok with paper-core not PVC, you can get that in Toronto.