CONSULTING

Magdalena Solé not only produces her own books, but draws from her own experience to help other artists publish their photobooks.

Before devoting herself full time to photography, she spent two decades designing and producing print materials, an experience that proved invaluable when creating photography books.

In 1989 she founded TransImage, a graphic design studio in New York City that created publications for worldwide markets, especially attuned to cultural idiosyncrasies. TransImage was based in New York City and San Francisco, with offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle. A partial list of clients included: American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Boeing, Callaway Golf, Citibank, Daimler Chrysler, Estée Lauder, HBO, Lutron, Mastercard, Qualcomm, Time Warner, and UPS.

Magdalena’s practice extends to teaching and consulting with other photographers who are developing their own photography books, or working on an exhibition.

    • As in storytelling, the sequence of images shapes the story. Learn to tell your story with images.

    • How to create a rhythm with images, so you don’t lose the viewer’s interest, while keeping tension in the story that is being told.

    • How to create a dialogue between adjacent images.

    • How to take your book from concept, through design, to the final printed book

    • Formulating your vision and aesthetic

    • Working with designers

    • The structure of a book, standards, and how to break them

    • Working with writers

    • The importance of typography

    • Paper selection

    • Format decisions that will impact your budget

    • Prepress and the mystery of color

    • Color shift when converting your files from RGB to CMYK for offset printing

    • How to proof your book before it goes on press

    • Colorcorrection and match prints

    • On press

    • Book binding options

    • Reviewing artist’s agreements with publishers

    • The importance of production schedules

    • Book release dates

    • Self-publishing options

    • From proposal to exhibition creation

    • Sequencing for a space  

    • Designing an art exhibit

    • The multidisciplinary art exhibit

    • Exhibition spaces and beyond

    • Printing your portfolio, size, margins, and paper considerations. Using a title sheet. Selecting a box to present your images.

    • How to choose the reviewers.

    • What promotional materials to bring, if any, so you can be remembered.

    • Crowdfunding: How to.

    • Budget considerations when publishing a book.

    • Ways to be budget conscious when choosing a format for your book.

    • How to finance an exhibition? Low budget solutions. Finding venues that will pay for the cost of of exhibiting your work.

    • Travel exhibitions

    • The handmade book

    • Limited Editions

    • How to work with bookbinders and other small edition book making options.

Consultation Pricing

For new clients a single 1-hour consultation at a rate of $200 is required. You will be asked to send me a paragraph outlining what you hope to accomplish during our meeting, as well as a link to your website, social media, and your bio.

Subsequent meetings can be booked on an as needed basis one hour at a time or in 5-hour blocks at a discounted rate to be used withing 5 months.

First new client 1 hour meeting: $200

Established client 1 hour meeting : $150

Five one-hour blocks @ $125 per hour: $625

CONSULTING PROJECTS

Past consulting projects where I have been involved from concept to the final printed book:

 

Hinda Schuman, Photographer

Done Doing Time: A Portrait of Life after Prison

Publisher: Daylight Books, 2023

Done Doing Time describes life after prison for two women, Linda Todd and Concetta Harris and their struggles against all odds, to remake their lives. Their intimate story is one of strength and determination.

 

Dear Shirley

Publisher: Daylight Books, 2018

Dear Shirley is a first-person saga of love and loss captured over more than four decades. The photographs and text contained in this diaristic account take an unflinching look at the dissolution of two marriages.

Bob Newman, Photographer

Shadows of Emmett Till

Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, 2022

Shadows of Emmett Till is an account of the Mississippi Delta, a region in the American South with a past entwined with slavery, racial injustice, and the murder of young Emmett Till and a present mired in poverty and vast social economic disparity. It is the same land that gave birth to the creative genius of B. B. King and the Blues. Shadows of Emmett Till seeks to probe that complex past by observing the many ways the shadow of Till’s murder still hangs over the Delta. This book arrives a time when white America may be starting to finally come to terms with the sins of its past. Along the way, past spills into the present, with parallels to George Floyd and so many others.

The two parallel stories of the past and the present are uniquely illustrated by using two Swiss bound book blocks laying on opposite sides of the cover.

Interested In Working Together But Have Some Questions?

Please reach out with the details of your project and I will be happy to see if we are a good fit!