Your camera roll is where holidays go to fade. A fortnight of heat and colour gets swiped past once on the flight home, then sinks under screenshots and parking receipts. Chira Janai, who photographs as Janai Visuals, refused to let Saint Lucia go the same way. She turned the trip into Postcard From Saint Lucia, an A5 perfect bound travel photo zine that friends can borrow, flick through and leave lying open on a coffee table. Our team’s first reaction to her files was a happy sigh, and we still can’t close the book without wanting to find a beach.
Each line of the spec was a decision, and one of them changed once Chira held a proof. Below, decision by decision, is what she chose and what you can lift for your own trip.
Format: pocketable A5, glued at the spine
A5 is the size people actually pick up. It sits in one hand, slips into a tote and feels generous once opened, because a full bleed photograph can run across both pages of a spread. Perfect binding produces a tight, square 3mm spine with a proper edge for a shelf, which matters when a travel zine is meant to last longer than the tan.
The front cover makes a confident call of its own: no title at all, just a single palm crowned hillside running to every edge, like a postcard picked up on the way home. The title and credits are saved for the inside back cover. For the same build, our notes on setting up artwork for perfect binding cover the cover spread and spine width.
Inside pages: 170gsm silk for colour that runs off the edge
Chira chose a weighty text stock, heavier than most zines carry. At 170gsm the silk gives each spread a satisfying turn and stops dark photographs ghosting through, while its smooth, gently sheened surface keeps deep greens deep and sunsets glowing copper.
The photography deserves it. Lush greens dominate, broken by stone coloured buildings punctuated with flashes of bright paint: the peach front of the Castries fishers’ co-operative under a red and green fuel sign, a lime green house facing a hillside of jungle, a ginger kitten staring straight down the lens. Near the end the sea turns copper at dusk around a lone figure in a boat, and a short run of monochrome pages rests the eye before the colour returns.
One practical lesson came out of the proof stage. Chira had added grain to some images while colour grading in Lightroom, and on the proof a few pages looked grainy. Harriet ran the files through preflight, confirmed nothing was low resolution and explained that the texture lived in the images themselves. Grain you add on screen will print as grain, so zoom right in before you export. For more ways to build a book from a trip, browse these ideas for turning travels into a photo book.
Cover stock: switched to uncoated after the proof
The original quote set the cover on 250gsm silk, matt laminated. Chira had already handled our free pack of printed stock swatches, and once she had a physical proof she knew what she wanted: the premium matt feel, on a cover that would cope with being passed from hand to hand. She asked whether uncoated would be more durable. Mike’s answer was straight. Uncoated board outlasts silk, but it still wants a laminate on the outside or it marks easily. The final books went onto 250gsm uncoated board, matt laminated on the outside.
That swap gives the zine its signature contrast. The cover has a firm, papery snap; open it and the silk pages glide. The last spread turns the contrast into a small lesson in ink. Chira’s closing essay sits white out of black on the final silk page, and opposite it the inside back cover is solid black on the unlaminated uncoated board. One black, two temperaments: smooth, shiny and dynamic on the silk, softer and calmer on the uncoated, as if it has retreated into the surface. Try a solid colour across the join between two stocks in your own zine and you get that comparison for free.
Cover weight: the bounce we would trim next time
Here is our honest printer’s note. Look at our before and after photograph: a fresh copy lies flat, while one that has been read springs back open, its cover still proud and springy. On a slim perfect bound zine, dropping the cover weight by one or two increments from 250gsm would help it relax and sit flatter after reading. It is a small tweak worth asking about if your page count is modest.
Proofing: one physical copy before the batch
Rather than going straight to the full run, Chira printed a single proof copy first. It gave her time to live with the book, test the cover in real hands and make her tweaks while changes were still easy. She also filmed it, writing to us that “I created a video with the proofs and people are really liking it”. With the cover switched and a PDF proof approved, the batch left us in good time for her launch gathering on 7 August.
“My prints have arrived and I love them thank you so much! Everyone I’ve shown so far have commented on the quality.”
Chira, photographer behind Postcard From Saint Lucia
Holiday pictures make a natural A5 travel zine, and our photo zine printing page lets you price one with silk pages and a matt laminated uncoated cover, the pairing Chira settled on after her proof.
Chira then asked about print to order, so we introduced her to our fulfilment and distribution partners, who can hold a batch and post copies straight to buyers as orders arrive. Sitting on a folder of holiday shots yourself? Start with our photo book and photo zine printing page and see what your trip could become.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
Product cataloguesA5, 28 pages, stapled£166for 100