Adoption Profile Tips from a Professional Designer: An Interview with Joanna Ivey
I was interviewed by Becca at RG Adoption Consulting and shared some insightful tips about how to create the perfect adoption profile!
Adoption Profile Book Tip #1: Keep it concise
A common pitfall is making your text too long. Keeping it short, conversational, and concise while getting your point across is the best way to do it. Expectant parents are flipping through a few different profile books trying to get a sense of who you are…if they like you then they may stop and read.
Photos often do the heavy lifting of sharing who you are—before anybody reads your text. It comes down to the physical space on the page, so in order to have big, beautiful pictures, your text needs to be as concise as possible. Use bullet points to your advantage!
Adoption Profile Book Tip #2: Find photos that tell a story
As you are writing make a list of your values, hobbies, and your unique qualities. Now see if you have a picture that tells that story! You know the saying, a picture is worth a 1000 words, well this rings 100% true when creating an adoption profile book.
That said, it is difficult to find photos that encompass a fundamental value or a unique quality, so that means you have to be intentional to find photos that are storytellers.
Perhaps you’re really into healthy eating and you want to get that across in your profile book….well instead of writing about your Whole 30 diet and meal prepping, go out and take a photo at a farmer’s market or your personal garden. If it’s too cold, maybe you whip out your camera next time you’re at Whole Foods or Jamba Juice!
It’s all about taking the values you have and allowing an expectant mother to really visualize them. The things that are important to you a re often the things that make you stand out!
Adoption Profile Tip #3: Avoid huge group pictures
As hopeful parents trying to create your own family, you may be thinking family is one of the most important things in your life AND you want to showcase that. However, be wary of HUGE group shots of your entire family standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Expectant mamas see tons of these photos already and they begin to just blur together.
While the people in those family group photos are really important to you, they end up just being a sea of faces in the eyes of an expectant parent. I challenge you to avoid using those photos and to really think about your family’s personality.
Are you the family that wears matching PJs on Christmas Eve or the family that goes camping every year? Pictures showcasing the “fun” or “adventurous” or “silly” side of your family are worth so much, even if they don’t include every single person or aren’t the most beautifully composed. These types of photos tell a story, and hopefully, one of them connects to the expectant mother flipping through your profile.
