Two ways to remember
Photo book or illustrated story? Start with what you want to keep.
Choose a photo book for the photographs themselves. Choose an illustrated story for the moment you want to tell.
Compare the optionsThe difference is what fills the pages
A photo book arranges your chosen photographs on printed pages. An illustrated story uses drawings and words to tell what happened, or imagine what could happen. Both can hold a memory. Stanly makes illustrated stories.
Choose a photo book when the picture is the keepsake
Perhaps you want to keep a wedding photograph exactly as it was taken, collect a year of holidays, or show the faces around a birthday table. A photo book lets those pictures do the telling, with captions if you want them.
You choose and arrange the photographs. This is a good fit when preserving the original pictures matters more than turning them into a new scene.
Choose an illustrated Memory Book when the story is the keepsake
Some moments have no photograph: the conversation on the way home, a family habit, or the day you first met. An illustrated Memory Book can tell that real-life story through drawn scenes and words.
For Stanly, you share the story and reference photos of the people in it. Those photos help with their illustrated appearance. The book is a drawn interpretation of your memories, rather than a collection of your original photographs.
Start with one moment you both remember. Note where you were, what happened, and the small detail the other person would recognize. You do not need a photograph of every scene you describe.
Choose a Fiction Book when you want to imagine an adventure
If the gift is about who someone could become in a story, start with Fiction. They might captain a spaceship, solve a mystery, or step into a world you invent together.
A Memory Book begins with your real experiences. A Fiction Book begins with an imagined adventure. Both are illustrated books; the difference is the story you want to tell.
Try one memory before you decide
Think of a rainy weekend away. If the best part is your favourite photograph by the sea, a photo book may be the right home for it. If the best part is the wrong turn, the little cafe, and the joke you still repeat, an illustrated story gives you room to tell it.
For an illustrated book, choose clear reference photos where the people are easy to see. Keep the story details separate from the photos, then look through the preview before you buy. That is the time to decide whether the words and pictures feel like your person.
A moment you can turn into a story
Start with a real memory for a Memory Book, or an idea for a Fiction Book. Add the people who belong in it and see your illustrated preview before buying.
Choose the kind of story first. The small details can come as you make it.
Good questions.
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A photo book prints and arranges your photographs. An illustrated story book tells a story through drawings and words. Stanly's Memory Book turns personal memories into an illustrated story, while the Fiction Book starts with an imagined adventure.
The story pages contain illustrations. Your reference photos help show the people in the drawings; a Memory Book is not a photo album that reproduces the original photographs.
No. Share reference photos of the people and describe the moments you want the story to include. The illustrated scenes can tell a memory even when you did not photograph it.
Yes. An illustrated Memory Book can be based on real people and experiences. Its pictures are an interpretation of those memories, so review the preview for the details that matter to you.