Long Weekend

Long Weekend is an accordion album for a trip: eight tall panels that unfold into a panorama on the table and stand up on a shelf when you get home. It suits a city break, a wedding weekend abroad or a few days by the sea, and anyone who wants to print on real photo paper without dealing with double-sided printing. The minimal style is white panels and Inter, nothing else. The first panel is the cover, with a photo, the place and the dates. Panel two is a full-bleed photo, tall and narrow, which suits doorways, streets, towers, coastlines shot in portrait. Panel three holds two photos stacked, panel four a photo with a caption and date, panel five another full-bleed, panel six three square-ish photos stacked, panel seven a photo with a journal block for the trip in a paragraph, and the last panel is the back with a small photo and a sign-off.

Because every panel is tall, portrait phone photos are the natural fit, and the full-bleed panels will crop a landscape to a narrow slice. Look through your roll for vertical shots first; most trips have plenty. The three-stack panel is where food, tickets and small details go. This format prints on one side only, so glossy or satin inkjet photo paper works perfectly, and an A4 sheet gives four panels; two sheets make the eight, joined with a strip of tape on the back. Use 160 to 200 gsm so the album stands, score the folds against a ruler, and fold mountain then valley. Eleven photos fill it; four to six well-chosen ones make a perfectly good four-panel version.

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 11 photos across 8 panels.