Always With Us

Always With Us is a remembrance accordion: eight ivory panels that stand on a table at a service, next to the flowers, and go home afterwards to a shelf. It is for the family who want something to display without ordering anything, and for the friend who offers to help with the photos. The wedding style suits it: ivory panels, Cormorant Garamond for the name and the dates, thin gold rules and a soft fade that lets an old print and a phone photo stand side by side. The cover panel holds a photo with the name and the dates. The second is a title panel for the service details or a line from a reading. Then a photo with a caption and date, a full-bleed portrait, a photo with a journal block for a short tribute, two photos stacked for the early and the late years, another caption panel and the back panel with a small photo and a closing line.

Photograph old prints flat in daylight; the frames and the fade are forgiving. Order the caption panels by date so the strip reads as a life from left to right. The journal panel takes about seventy words, which is a paragraph one person can write the night before. It prints on one side, so a home inkjet and a heavy matte photo paper, 180 to 200 gsm, make something that feels considered; score every fold and fold gently. Two A4 sheets, taped at the back, make the eight panels, and copies for family members are a matter of printing again. Eight photos fill it; a four-panel version with the portrait and the dates is enough on its own.

Printing this accordion is forgiving because it prints on one side only, so the glossy or satin photo paper home inkjets do best on is exactly right; nothing has to line up on the back. Each A4 or Letter sheet gives four tall panels (A3 gives four bigger ones), and an 8-panel album is 2 strips joined with a strip of tape on the reverse. Use 160 to 200 gsm so it stands on a shelf, and score before folding on anything heavier or the ink cracks at the crease. Fold zig-zag, mountain then valley, using a ruler for the first crease. Print at 100%, not Fit to page, with borderless mode on if the printer offers it. The template uses 8 photos across 8 panels.