Lookbook Printing

Create your own high-quality, professional lookbook with our exceptional custom offset printing services and take advantage of unbeatable prices, too!

Lookbooks can play a vital role in your success as a business, entrepreneur, or independent creative. Whether you’re an artist, a model, a designer, a craftsperson, or you work in the fashion, automotive, or real estate verticals, you’ll need a beautiful lookbook that stands out in a competitive commercial environment. A professional lookbook is more than a portfolio of images and samples; it’s an ambassador for your brand and your personality, and it needs to highlight what’s unique about your offer. It must be eye-catching, attention-grabbing, and eloquent.

At QinPrinting, we love elevating the profiles of creative artists, designers, and engineers—amateur or professional—with stunning custom lookbooks. 25 years of success in the industry, an expert team, state-of-the-art technological wizardry, and unrivalled customer service sustains our first-class reputation in the creative industries worldwide. Let us help you to make a lookbook that’s both beautiful and effective.

Custom Lookbook Printing Costs

At QinPrinting, we help creatives of all stripes to print lookbooks of unequalled quality. But we also understand that everyone must work within their budget. That’s why we strive to deliver superb quality lookbooks at the most attractive price point you’ll find anywhere. Whether you’re an independent creative who wants to print a world-class lookbook for self-promotion or an industry professional seeking to elevate your brand, we put our expertise at your disposal at a price you can afford.

But we don’t ask you to take that on turst. Look for yourself! You can get an immediate insight into the cost of printing your custom lookbook by checking our at-a-glance price charts. Unlike almost all offset printing services — which have a minimum print order of 500 or even 1,000 units—we offer a minimum order quantity (MOQ) of just 100 copies and still with a very appealing price tag. But as you see from the charts, the more lookbook copies you order in a run, the less you pay per unit.

Saddle Stitch Lookbook Printing Price Chart (8.5" x 11")

All prices listed in CAD

Quantity	100pcs		500pcs		1000pcs		2000pcs		5000pcs		10000pcs
Page count	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total
24pp + 4pp	$3.62	$362	$1.01	$507	$0.65	$653	$0.48	$962	$0.40	$2,001	$0.36	$3,596
32pp + 4pp	$4.22	$422	$1.19	$597	$0.76	$763	$0.57	$1,149	$0.48	$2,422	$0.45	$4,458
40pp + 4pp	$5.02	$502	$1.43	$715	$0.93	$928	$0.69	$1,382	$0.58	$2,909	$0.53	$5,282

Please note that all prices are EXW our facility and do not include shipping costs.
Cover: 200 gsm / 74 lb coated cover paper with matte lamination
Interior: 128 gsm / 87 lb coated text paper, full color printing

Paperback Lookbook Printing Price Chart (8.5" x 11")

All prices listed in CAD

Quantity	100pcs		500pcs		1000pcs		2000pcs		5000pcs		10000pcs
Page count	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total
64pp + 4pp	$7.43	$743	$2.12	$1,059	$1.36	$1,356	$1.04	$2,070	$0.88	$4,379	$0.82	$8,204
80pp + 4pp	$8.84	$884	$2.53	$1,265	$1.64	$1,637	$1.25	$2,502	$1.06	$5,322	$1.00	$9,958
128pp + 4pp	$13.06	$1,306	$3.80	$1,901	$2.48	$2,481	$1.92	$3,832	$1.61	$8,074	$1.52	$15,179

Please note that all prices are EXW our facility and do not include shipping costs.
Cover: 250 gsm / 92 lb coated cover paper with matte lamination
Interior: 128 gsm / 87 lb coated text paper, full color printing
Sewing and perfect binding

For a precise quote for your project, try our helpful online Printing Cost Calculator. Just fill in the form and click for an instant quote! If you have questions, get in touch and one of our enthusiastic in-house team members — not a robot or a call center operator! — will be happy to help.

Common Lookbook Sizes

The dimensions of your lookbook will depend on the photographs you include, the number of images, the text, layout, and orientation, among other factors. A landscape-oriented portfolio-style lookbook of full-color art photography will be larger, for example; while an artisan jeweler may opt for a smaller, more intimate format suggestive of the qualities of handmade crafts.

Common sizes for many of the lookbooks we print are 8.5″ by 11″, 5.5″ by 8.5″, 148 mm x 210 mm, 6″ by 9″ and 9″ by 6″.

Smaller sizes are practical if you need to mail out a lot of copies. Larger sizes make a stronger impression. You’re not limited to the suggestions above. At QinPrinting, we specialize in creating unique, custom lookbooks in any size or format you desire. Just remember that extensive customization will mean higher costs and possibly slower turnaround times, as we’ll need to do additional pre-press and setup work. But for many clients, the investment in making something that really stands out often proves be worthwhile. It’s always your decision.

Lookbook Paper Options

While almost all lookbooks include text, the images and photographs are the obvious focus of your design. So, we advise to print on gloss or matte art paper to get the best photographic reproduction. Gloss and matte have perfect surfaces for vibrant color or black-and-white printing that render photographs and artwork faithfully with excellent color, perfect contrast, and fine detail. Gloss paper is a must for lookbooks which include full-color spreads and less text, whereas lookbooks with more text may benefit from matte paper. Matte paper still allows eye-catching color or black-and-white reproduction but makes larger blocks of text easier to read.

You’ll need two paper specifications for your lookbook: one for the inside pages and one for the cover. If you’re going for a really luxury, high-class look with a hardcover binding, include end papers, which may be the same paper as the interior, or you can choose something different; a heavier, colored or textured paper, for example.

Paper Stock for Lookbooks

Sewn perfect binding—a style of paperback binding which can lay open with the pages flat without breaking the spine—is a popular choice for high-quality lookbooks. This binding style needs the spine to be at least 3 mm thick. Standard perfect binding, saddle-stitching and spiral binding are other options. Clients may also choose hardcover binding, especially for a super-professional, high-end look and feel. If the interior page count is less than 32 pages, we recommend a paper weight of 200 gsm / 135 lb gloss art paper for sewn perfect binding. If your interior page count is over 32, then you may also opt for 128 gsm / 86 lb or 157 gsm / 106 lb paper. It’s beautiful to see and touch, faithfully reproduces your original photography, and has good durability.

Cover Paper

Interior Paper

Hardcover Paper

Bindings for Lookbooks

While we’ll make your lookbook in any shape and size you like, the choice of binding matters, too, for reasons of appearance and durability alike. Let’s look at the most common, professional-looking options. You can open all the following bindings flat.

Perfect bound

We use this binding style for standard paperback lookbooks. We collate the interior pages into a block, glued together, and then glued into a wrap-around cover made of heavier art paper or lightweight card stock. For lookbooks with a higher page count, this is a great option.

Sewn perfect bound

We use this binding style for a lot of lookbooks we print. We collate the interior pages into sets called signatures, which are then sewn together and fixed into a wrap-around cover made of heavier art paper or lightweight card stock. For lookbooks with a moderate page count that need to lay flat, this is a great option.

Saddle-stitching

To saddle stitch your lookbook, we fold the printed interior sheets and stack them inside the cover sheet before stapling them together down the curved edge. Saddle stitch is only possible with a page count divisible by four, up to a maximum of 64 pages. But to make sure the lookbook is neat and lies flat, we recommend a limit of 48 pages or fewer for this style of binding.

Spiral bound

This binding is another popular choice for lookbooks destined to “do the rounds” presenting examples of work to potential clients, for its practicality and flexibility. We punch or drill holes into the pages down one side and then bind them with a plastic coil which spirals through the holes. We crimp the coil at both ends so the pages don’t come loose. You can turn the pages of a spiral-bound lookbook through 360° and also lay the open lookbook completely flat. We can laminate the pages to make them extra-resistant to UV light.

Sewn hardcover

In this binding, we organize the interior pages into signatures which are then printed, cut, and sewn, and glued into a hard casing covered by a printed sheet which forms the cover. This binding is the most durable and high-end, especially if you add a dust jacket, end papers, and a marker ribbon, for example.

Whichever binding style you choose, we like to make it easy for you to design your lookbook. So, you can use one of our ready-made design templates if you like. And please ask us for paper samples. We’ll be happy to send them to you in the mail. The samples are free, so you need only pay the mailing charges.

Lookbook Design and Artwork Tips

Whether you’re creating your lookbook design yourself or outsourcing to a professional, third-party graphic designer, you need to understand how to get all your files “print ready”. You’ll need at least a basic understanding of bleed zones, safety areas, trim lines, and borders, for example, and check that the image resolution and the color space are all correct. With that in mind, here are helpful tips to help you when you’re preparing your lookbook files for the printer.

Export your files as vectors in PDF format for the best results. Our recommended software options for lookbook design are Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign. These will also allow you to convert your color space from RGB to CMYK which you will need to do for offset printing.

If you can’t deliver vectors — say, if you’re exporting bitmaps from Photoshop — then make sure the resolution is at least 300 DPI. With vectors, you needn’t worry about resolution, but all other images must have a high definition to tolerate resizing without becoming fuzzy and “pixilated”.

You’ll need to add a “bleed zone” of 3 mm around all your pages. A bleed is an extended zone at the periphery of a photo, which falls outside the area that your finished page will cover. Once we’ve printed your pages, we’ll cut them to the exact size needed for your lookbook format. This “bit extra” gets cut off and makes sure that the finished image fills the page with none of it being lost. You should mark bleed zones as red lines.

Inside your bleed zone, don’t forget to mark the “trim lines”. These will define the final dimensions of the finished page. Make sure that any necessary elements of your images stop at least 10 mm short of the trim line.

If a photo crosses over two pages in a “spread” make sure that nothing essential—like the subject’s face or other important details—lie along the center crease.

For a spiral bound lookbook, leave an added margin of at least 15 mm on the edge that we’ll bind the lookbook to allow for the holes

If you engage a professional designer to create your files, they should know what’s needed to prepare “print ready” files. But if you’re working with design software yourself for the first time, these are the crucial tips to consider before you send us your files. The responsibility for sending “print ready” files is yours. But please don’t worry! We’re happy to “hold your hand” each step of the way, explain what’s required, liaise with your designer if you have one, and manually check everything ourselves to make sure it all goes smoothly and you end up with a perfect print edition of your lookbook.

To learn more about preparing your photographs, text, and layout for printing, please check out our Pre-press Artwork information page.

Let's Talk!

If you’re an independent creative professional or work for an agency or corporation and you want to print a lavish lookbook of unrivalled quality and at an unbeatable price, we should talk. Get in touch today to chat through your needs or to ask for a no-obligation quote. We can’t wait to help you make your lookbook the best!

Lookbook Printing