In this post, I’m sharing a farewell photobook I designed for a fellow Navy spouse. Read on for the project and process, but I’ll start with little background.

The “Why” Behind this Project

Every corner of the military has its own way of doing things, but I’ll share a little bit about ours.

My husband has flown F-18s in the Navy since I met him over 16 years ago.

When he’s deployable, he’s part of a “squadron” made up of 20-40 officers (depending on whether the jet is single seat or two seat) and around 200 sailors who maintain the jets and run administrative departments.

The spouses generally band together in clubs that revolve around the squadrons. It’s a bit old-fashioned, the idea that your social life revolves around your spouse’s job, but it’s practical.

Since they work, train, and deploy together, we’re all on the same home-and-away schedule and in need of the same type of support at the same time.

The person who usually (though not always) runs these groups of spouses and significant others is the Commanding Officer’s Wife, or the “COW.”

It’s a tongue-in-cheek acronym that most COWs embrace. We shower them with cow-related gifts when there’s a change of command in the squadrons, and it’s really all in good fun.

Back in June, our squadron had a change of command, and my husband went from being the Executive Officer (XO) to the Commanding Officer (CO, or “Skipper”). That made me the new COW.

Having one of my roles defined by my spouse’s job really does challenge my modern sensibility as a woman, believe me. But over the years I’ve come to accept and even embrace it.

These spaces are needed in our community. Our spouses are currently deployed. They trained all last year to work up to this deployment, and when they left - at the start of the pandemic - we had no idea when they’d return.

Last year, while I served as our COW’s right hand gal, I got a glimpse into some of her responsibilities. It’s another conversation altogether, the needs we volunteer spouses meet in service to the Navy. Let’s just say it’s a lot.

And now that I’ve been the COW for a few months, I can attest that this role takes a lot of time if you’re willing to take it on.

So it’s fitting that when there’s a change of command, we recognize not only the accomplishments of the outgoing Commanding Officer, but also of his partner.

A scrapbook of memories from the tour is a traditional gift, and one that most spouses appreciate. I wanted to give it a modern makeover while maintaining the meaningful elements of the old-school style.

Spoiler alert: she loved it.

Here’s how I put the project together.

1 | Make a Plan

I start every project by asking myself a few questions.

What’s the topic?
What’s the scope?
What materials do I want to include?
What’s the format?

For this project, I wanted to include memories from our outgoing COW’s time as the XO spouse, but mostly focus on her 15 months as the COW, when she got to lead our group.

I knew I wanted to include photos, memories, and notes from the spouses and significant others in our group - both past and present.

For the format, I decided to go with a hardcover photobook from Artifact Uprising. I liked the cover options and I knew I could work with the simplicity of their layouts.

2 | Edit and Organize the Materials

Photos

I’ve done compilation projects like this before, and it’s helpful to offer people a couple of options for photo sharing - Google or Apple - to make it as simple as possible to contribute.

A deadline is also essential!

Once I had all the materials, I edited the photos in Lightroom, then renamed them so they’d be in chronological order, which is how I wanted them to appear in the photo book.

I cover this whole process in my memory-keeping method, which you can download here (it’s free!).

Notes

I also asked people to write a note to our COW with some sentiments for her and/or their favorite memories of the last year or so.

They emailed me their notes and I created custom pages with them using Adobe Illustrator.

You could also just add notes as text boxes throughout your photobook. That’s fairly straightforward, but hey - I’m a designer. I wanted them to look a very particular way.

So I designed custom pages, used a mix of black and white backgrounds, and kept the fonts simple and consistent throughout the project.

3 | Put it all together

Front-loading the materials for the project and getting them edited and organized first makes putting the photobook together a snap.

I uploaded everything to an album in my Artifact Uprising account, selected a type of project (hardcover photobook, 10x10 inches) and added the images and the notes pages to the project.

I had to do a little playing around with the layouts to make it all work, since AU doesn’t allow customizing of layout pages. But it worked.

The project is beautiful, and - most importantly - our COW felt the love.

Get Started

If you’re looking to create a project like this of your own, download my free step-by-step guide to modern memory-keeping.

It walks you through the process I use to create photobooks like this one and includes a one-page checklist you can print and start working through immediately.

Get the Guide

And if you’re not following along on Instagram, come say hi. I’m in the DMs daily and am happy to answer any questions you have about memory-keeping!