Follow the links for "the story so far" in our series on the recession... Yes, times will be tough for a while but you shouldn't assume the sky is falling. It makes no sense to sacrifice your business and market reputation to survive the short term challenge. Instead you may need to pull your horns in and find ways to prosper while others decline. A good place to start is by analysing your budget and business model, and we have a spreadsheet to help with that. Most people react to the threat of declining sales by saying, "I've gotta cut my costs". Everyone needs to work out their own figures, but To View More >>

.... and we do! Our clients look at the covers on our album samples and make judgements on what is inside. It's true! We help them do it. We want them to look at the cover and suspect that there is something very special inside. It was rewarding to know that when the New Zealand album award judges saw our 2009 award album in the first Musee cover they were wowed into silence. This cover demands respect. Working through the range of covers available to us we have made a studio decision to display a specific look for our albums. This makes them recognisable in the wild and it is our aim to earn those To View More >>

Well in excess of 2000 aftershocks later, the region I live in still has no idea when the shaking will stop. [caption id="attachment_9611" align="alignnone" width="333" caption="I arrived at the bride's mum's house, and they had a big crack in their drive that went ..."][/caption] On September 4, 2010, Christchurch (New Zealand) was rudely awoken (4:35am) by a rather large Earthquake (magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale).The energy released in that one shake is still way in excess of the sum of the energy released by all of  the aftershocks, even though many have been over 4 and several To View More >>

The most advanced in our series of classroom movie webinars is coming up this Thursday, 9am (NZDT). This week we're aiming to cover: - Designing Queensberry matted and Duo albums - Managing your templates - Working as a team across networks - Placing a Queensberry  Design order. Click here to register and for further details. If you've missed our previous webinars, check out our up-to-date Classroom Movies here. As always, hope to see you there! Nigel To View More >>

Stephen blogged recently about how, when he's away from home, he loves keeping up with friends and family on Facebook. Loves the photos, the sharing, the little messages - likes wishing his mother a happy birthday ... and seeing the message spread around his network, so the best wishes get multiplied many times. But sharing isn't the same thing as remembering, and Facebook is really about the former, not the latter, and it's interesting to ask why. For a start, what's the likelihood of Facebook being around when our children and grandchildren want to know about us? If history is any guide, not To View More >>

Let's wrap up this Problem reporter series and stop ignoring the elephant in the room… Who needs a problem reporter anyway? After all, as we confirmed at the webinar it drives some people nuts. Well I'm glad you asked! I should start by saying it's not an unusual concept. Try googling "pre-flight", for example, and check out the Wikipedia and Adobe listings in particular. What the pre-flight process does in the printing industry is ensure that digital files sent for printing are all present, valid, correctly formatted, and of the desired type. Why? Because, if they're not, the job can't be done. To View More >>

Justine Ungaro has just published a stack of images of her first Musée album on her blog and agreed to let us feature them here too. A beautiful wedding. Beautiful album. And beautiful bride... You may recognise her as former American Idol judge, Kara Dio Guardi ;) Here's what Justine had to say about Queensberry and her first Musée... I discovered Queensberry albums way back in 2003, my first year at WPPI and have been using them ever since. Queensberry is based in New Zealand and their attention to detail and level of craftsmanship of their albums is always notable. However, in 2010 they really To View More >>

I just participated in a panel discussion on management accounting for professional photographers. Well I was invited, but my contribution was zero (I'll explain in a minute). However the experience brought something to mind that I think is important, so here goes. Having an accountant (and keeping regular management accounts) is like having one leg. A damn sight better than none. But two is much better. The first leg is the data, keeping score. The second leg is analysis: strategising, playing what-if with the numbers, thinking through your options and how they might impact your bottom line. To View More >>

Have you ever asked yourself questions like these: I know how much I want to earn, but how much do I need to charge my clients to make it? How much is enough? What happens if my bookings go down, or I move to cheaper albums... or shoot-and-burn? Then check this out... We've just uploaded a recording of our latest album-based marketing webinar in which Ian uses his Minimum Average Sale Calculator to help you answer those questions - and more important, show the impact on your income if you change what you're doing - or your bookings go up or down. Click here to view the full post and video on Queensberry To View More >>

Hello dears, if you're like me you find the modern inter-web and computer thingamys a little overwhelming. in fact I had a conniption the first time my nephew plugged my Macintosh SE into a network and I've never been really comfortable since. But I like what it lets me do, so I struggle along. I did peek in my iTunes music folder once (looking for my old Tom Jones and Seekers' records) but I thought, "Good grief, that looks complicated," and I've never looked again. I suspect that's exactly what Apple want. They don't even mention their "back end" (nasty expression) because you can really get To View More >>