“For me, travelling to a foreign place means much more than “capturing” memories in the form of pictures. Memories arise from encounters, feelings, flavours, smells, languages and sounds. My personal memories are often closely linked to music. The lyrics in the book come from songs that revive travelling experiences in me and awaken wanderlust. Some are about travelling itself, others refer to the greatest journey of us all, the journey of life. The parallels are obvious – like every journey, this one is also about longing, farewell, fear and courage, and about time passing far too quickly.” – Matthias Notter
This is a brief insight into Matthias Notter’s impressive work of art, which is more than moving with its beautiful words and images. Matthias Notter has invested an estimated 200-300 hours of work in this project and the result is definitely worth seeing! He designed his Photo book with our software and won the Bookfactory Photo book competition 2024.
Would you like to introduce yourself?
With pleasure. I’m Matthias, 53 years old and I come from the beautiful canton of Aargau. I am 33% partner in a fabulous family and 80% employed as an architectural project manager at a general contractor in central Switzerland.
How did the idea for the Photo book “Into the great wide open” come about?
I designed this album as my final project for the photography diploma course at the Baden Education Centre. It contains photographs from my travels during the course. The Photos are in black and white or colour, depending on the subject and destination. In some of the black-and-white photos, red colour appears occasionally to pick up on the colour theme of the book layout (black-white-red). Explanatory texts, detailed captions and lines of text from favourite songs complement the pictures.
I see a black, white and red thread in your book. How did it come about?
Ralf Turtschi helped me in particular to get started in book design, as he was one of the lecturers in Baden. My photo albums used to be rather boring compared to today. Ralf encouraged me to try something new. I started filling empty picture boxes with colour and using them as a design element or using red colour again and again. The red colour gives the book more pizzazz without overloading it…
You have added matching song lines to your Photos. We think that’s very creative! Which song inspired you the most?
All the pieces of music quoted in the book inspired me in some way. Starting with the song “Mare Mare” by Luca Carboni. It is still a tradition in my family to listen to this song when we go to the sea in Tuscany. As soon as we see the sea for the first time, this song has to be playing!
“Into the great wide open” by Tom Petty and the heartbreakers, which gave the photo album its name, is for me the song par excellence to start a road trip.
But I also remember exactly when I heard the “Yerevan Ballad” by Reincarnation Orchestra for the first time and how much it touched me…
You have added special elements, such as large letters, to your Photo book. How did you do that?
I wanted to emphasise the beginnings of the chapters with these large letters. I took empty picture boxes and placed them on top of each other. I rounded off certain picture boxes so that the letters had a rounded shape:
Why did you decide in favour of a real photo book and not digital printing?
I thought that this Photo book would be particularly suitable for my black and white Photos. I was also impressed by the maxi format and the flat pages.
Which function of our software do you use most often?
Copy and paste, if I’m honest. But I also think the grid in your software is sensational, because it allows me to optimally align my Photos!
What other tips can you give us along the way?
- Try it out! Try out all the functions of the software.
- The first idea is rarely the best idea. But once you have decided on one, you should stick with it.
- Treat the texts with as much passion as the Photos. I found this difficult at first, but it’s worth it!
Matthias Notter
Find out more about Matthias Notter: Matthias Notter (@matsworld_official) • Instagram-Fotos und -Videos
