Quality Photobooks. How do you know what to choose?

In my last post, I wrote of the experience I had with my Father's recently made photobook. It looked pretty good, but I could notice the binding was not perfect and the edge of some pages were not fine. He said the software was not as intuitive as he wished, and was difficult to make changes to what he'd done. At one point he decided to start the design again.

So, how do you know what you are getting? Pretty much all of these companies are online and you design your photobook with software obtained from those company's websites. Furthermore, there are a number of them to choose from.

What stands out to me when purchasing anything is awards and recognition - Manfrotto gear with the Red Dot Design Award, Kata with the same award, the workshop I take my car to has many motorsport accolades backed up by word of mouth. So when it comes to a lab that prints my photos, and more specifically phototbooks, I'd choose one that's awarded nationally and even internationally. DRUPA, a print media fair and convention for the industry, is a worthy judgement of quality. Last month, a Melbourne (Australia) company received two awards at DRUPA, which added to their existing collection.

I think their quality output is outstanding, and the comments on their Facebook page are in-line with this.