Welcome to Fountain Albums! To help get you up and running creating your fantastic albums we’ve put together this easy to follow guide on how our amazing FREE album design software works. Fountain Designer works for both Mac and PC users and has been developed to allow you to design and order your finished albums with us.
The first thing you need to do is register on our site at www.fountainalbums.com as this allows us to confirm you are a professional photographer and get you set up with our pricing and offers.
When you are logged in and ready to create your first album simply click on any of the links that say ‘Download Fountain Designer’ for Mac or PC. This will launch the installer which you simply need to follow the on-screen prompts to complete. Once complete the icon for Fountain Designer will appear on your desktop!
You are now ready to create an album! Click on ‘Create a New Project’ to get started or ‘Open an Existing Project’ if you are already underway with a design.
First up is selecting which Product Type you’d like to order. These are broken into three categories, Full Material Cover, Image Cover (canvas or acrylic) or Full Material Cover with Personalisation. Full Material Cover is for if you’d like a simple, plain material wrap, Image Cover allows you to add an acrylic or canvas photo to the cover of your album and Full Material Wrap with Personalisation gives you the option to have a material wrap but customise it with either debossed or foiled text, a custom debossed or foild design or a UV printed design.
Once selected, these options are all available at the end of your build – more on that later!
You’ll then be asked to select which size of product you’d like to go for. We do six standard album sizes: 8×8″ | 10×10″ | 12×12″ | 12×9″ | 14×10″ | 12×16″
Then it is time to add your pictures. You can select the images from a folder (or folders) at this stage or wait and add them when you are building your pages to add folders or individual images one at a time.
First up is your cover. If you’ve selected the ‘Full Material Wrap’ option then you won’t have to do anything here, you’ll just dive straight in to designing your album. If you’ve selected an image wrap then you’ll upload your photo at this stage and place it where you want on the cover page (usually filling it – there are guides for image covers pre-loaded in the software to assist you).
If you have selected the ‘Full Material Wrap with Personalisation’ option however this is where you get creative! If you require Debossing, Foiling or Custom Debossing/Foiling then simply leave the cover page blank – you’ll input your text at the order stage.
If you require a UV Print design then this is where you’ll add it. You can drop in one of our pre-made options, bring elements of designs in from the ‘Scrapbook’ tab on the bottom of the designer or upload your own custom design.
Add custom text to your design by simply using the Aa+ icon found in the toolbar and change the size, font, spacing, etc to suit what you are looking for. There are many font’s pre-loaded in the software but you can also use any font currently installed on your own system – creating endless design possibilities.
You can also save your designs as ‘Cover Styles’ to use in the future! Simply click the * symbol in the bottom right corner and select ‘Save Cover As Page Style’.
Select from Scrapbook 
Add text & customise 
Save cover design
After completing your cover you are now ready to start designing your album spreads. There are a number of ways you can do this and everyone has a preferred method. You can design the album from scratch by creating your own layouts by clicking the ‘Add Picture Box’ icon in the toolbar, resizing it to what you need then dragging and dropping your desired image into the box.
You can also use any of the pre-existing ‘Page Style’ that are displayed among the tabs at the bottom of the screen. All you need to do is drag and drop the layout of choice onto your spread and again, drag and drop your chosen image(s) into the bounding box(s).
The third method is to add fully designed spreads into the album. If you use an album design software package such as Fundy or Smart Albums you can export your designs from there as jpegs and upload them to Fountain Designer like any other image. You simply need to use ‘Add Picture Box’ to fill the entire spread and then drop your completed design within it. This method also works if you create your own page layouts in Photoshop, InDesign or other similar software.
When you are happy with your awesome layout you simply need to click on the ‘Order’ icon in the top right corner of the toolbar.
This then connects you to the online ordering part of the build. It’s important to note that you now need to create a SEPARATE profile for Fountain Designer at this point. This is different to your log-in on our website but we recommend using the same username and password to make it easier to remember. This also where you will fill in your delivery and invoice info.
Once logged in you will be able to choose your album options such as:
Cover type:
Paper Choice:
And if you are going for a debossed or foil personalisation option then here is where you would enter the desired text:
You can also choose here if you would like a plain or UV Printed presentation box:
When you are happy with your options and you’ve double checked each selection simply follow the simple steps to complete your order and pay.
We are always only a phone call or an email away if you need help at any point of your order as well. If you need any inspiration for your designs then why not check out our Instagram feed at @fountain_albums – we can’t wait to see your stunning designs!