We do not make pet memorial photobooks. This page covers what to look for in one and where the format works. We make a single portrait in a painted style instead, and the last section sets out which of the two suits which household.
What a pet memorial photobook is
A printed, bound book of photographs of one animal, usually assembled by the owner in an online editor and printed to order: hardback or softback, twenty to a hundred pages, with room for captions. Every general photobook printer will make one; there's no need for a specialist, and a "pet memorial" label on the same product usually means the same book at a higher price.
When a photobook is the right answer
- When there are many photographs and they span years. A book is the only format on this list that handles fifteen years of an animal in one object. A single frame cannot.
- When more than one household is grieving. You can print three copies. You can't print three of a collar.
- When children are involved. A book is something a child can hold, turn, and take to their own room, and a good deal of the work of grief in children happens through handling things. Our guide to explaining a pet's death to a child covers the rest of that.
- When the photographs include people. The pictures worth keeping are usually of the animal with somebody, and those do not go on a wall as easily as a portrait does.
What to watch for if you make one
Choose fewer photographs than you want to. A book of forty pictures is read; a book of three hundred is opened once. Write the captions in the first sitting, while you still know which walk that was and which year: the pictures survive and the context fades. And print two copies, because the one you keep will be handled.
Why we do not make one
Because it would be a worse book than a printer who does nothing else, and because we would be charging for the layout software, not for anything of ours. We make one thing and we would rather make it properly.
What we make instead, and when it is the better answer
A portrait in a painted style, made from a single photograph you already have, in oil, watercolour, charcoal, line or pastel, printed to order. It is a different object doing a different job. The book is a record you take down and open, usually on purpose, usually rarely. The portrait is on the wall, so you meet it without choosing to, which is the point and also the reason some people would rather not have one for a while.
Plenty of households end up with both, and there's no competition between them. If the picture is what you want, the preview is free and watermarked, and nothing is printed until you have said yes to it. If it is the wider range you are after, memorial ideas covers everything from a garden stone to a written record, and keepsakes covers the things worth keeping. The whole remembering stage is here.