Twelve Frames

Twelve Frames is a year-in-review accordion with twelve panels, one three-photo stack for each season plus highlight panels between them, in the film style with polaroid borders and monospaced date stamps. It is for the person who shoots all year and wants the whole year standing on the desk in January. The film style gives off-white panels, Space Mono for the year and the dates, polaroid borders and a warm tint that makes a year of different cameras and light sit together. The cover panel is a photo with the year. Then a three-stack for the first season, a photo with a caption and date, a three-stack for the second, a full-bleed, a three-stack for the third, another caption panel, a three-stack for the fourth, two stacked for the best trip, a journal panel for the year in a paragraph, a last full-bleed and the back panel with a small photo and a sign-off.

Twelve slots in the four stacks equal twelve months if you want to be literal, or three favourites per season if you do not. The caption panels take the two dated events of the year and the full-bleeds the two tall photos you like most. Twelve panels is three A4 sheets, single-sided, joined with two strips of tape, and it prints on any inkjet photo paper. At 160 to 200 gsm it stands in a zig-zag on a shelf about 60 cm long when open; on A3 paper it becomes a real panorama. Score the folds. Twenty-one photos fill it, and the eight-panel version at twelve photos is on the same page if the year was quieter.

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 12-panel album is 3 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 21 photos across 12 panels.