Storybook Template — Complete Guide

Storybook turns your invitation into a hardback picture book. The cover is cloth in a colour you pick, with your photo pasted on like the picture plate of a storybook, the event name as the book's title and a corner of the cover curling up as if someone is about to open it. Inside, every section is a cream page with its own page number, and little illustrations from the world you choose — dinosaurs, outer space, a fairytale castle, the jungle or under the sea — peek out of the page corners.

Storybook is one of Fotify's simpler designs: its look comes from one colour you choose — any colour at all — and the story world you pick.

This guide covers how Storybook looks, the options unique to it, how to apply it to your event, and how it lays out each section of your invitation.

Storybook is available on every plan, Free included.

For an overview of the template gallery and the picker, see How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation.

What makes Storybook different

Standard templates change colours and fonts over the same shared layout. Storybook replaces the layout itself: its own cover and back cover, its own section heads, and its own treatment of the message, countdown, gallery, story and schedule.

Signature design elements

• A cloth-bound cover in your colour — pick a colour from the suggested swatches or from the colour picker. The cover has a spine, a debossed border pressed into the board and a darker band with the date, time and place, like the label on a book's spine
• Your photo as the cover plate — the cover photo is pasted on slightly tilted, with a paper border and a shadow, and a little picture from your story world stuck on its corner
• Five story worlds — dinosaurs, outer space, a fairytale castle, the jungle or under the sea. The world's pictures peek out of the corner of every page, sit on the cover plate and decorate every section title
• Numbered pages — every section is a cream page with the page number at the bottom, counted in the order your guests read them
• An age sticker — an optional round sticker on the cover with the age being celebrated
• Friendly type — Baloo 2, a chunky rounded face, for the title, the section titles and the big numbers; Nunito, a readable rounded sans, for everything guests read
• Always readable — whatever colour you pick, even a pale yellow or a near-black, the title on the cover is printed in a colour that reads clearly on it, and the text inside stays dark on cream

When to choose Storybook

Storybook is made for children's parties, roughly from age two to ten:

• Themed birthday parties — pick the world that matches the party: dinosaurs, a space mission, a princess or knight party at the castle, a jungle safari or an under-the-sea splash
• First birthdays and toddler parties — a soft colour like sunflower or bubblegum, the age sticker set to "1" and the story section as a year of chapters
• Class and group parties — the board-game trail is a clear way to show the afternoon: arrivals, games, cake, goodbyes
• Baby showers with a storybook theme — leave the age sticker blank and use the story section for the parents' chapters

If you prefer stickers, balloons and confetti, try Confetti. For a soft pastel sky with clouds and stars, try Lullaby. For a retro video-game look, try Arcade.

Applying Storybook to your event

1. Open your event, click Invitation in the sidebar, then the Invitation tab
2. In Design Template, click Change template if the gallery is collapsed, and find Storybook under Designs (it is listed under the Birthday, Party and Baby shower filters)
3. Optional: press Try it on to see Storybook with your own invitation details in the live preview — nothing is saved until you press Use this design
4. Or click the Storybook card to apply it straight away
5. Open Storybook options below the gallery to pick your cover colour and the other options described below. Changes save automatically

Storybook works on every plan. On free events a small "Made with Fotify" badge appears in the bottom corner of the invitation; any paid plan or an active subscription removes it.

Switching to another template later is non-destructive: your event content stays exactly as you entered it, and your Storybook options are kept in case you switch back.

Storybook options

Storybook has five options of its own. They take the place of the standard colour and font controls, which Storybook doesn't use.

1. Cover colour

The cloth the book is bound in, front and back, and the colour of the buttons and the section ribbons. Pick it two ways:

• A suggested swatch — Sky blue (default), Tomato red, Sunflower, Leaf green, Berry purple or Bubblegum
• Pick any color — the last chip opens your device's colour picker, so you can match the party's balloons, the cake or a favourite T-shirt exactly. The colour's code is shown beside the chips

Any colour works. Storybook prints the title on the cover in either a cream or a deep shade of your colour, whichever reads better, and only nudges the cloth's shade when neither would be clear enough. The pages inside stay cream, with dark text, whatever you pick.

2. Story world

The world the pictures come from:

• Dinosaurs (default) — a friendly long-necked dinosaur, a spotted egg and a trail of footprints
• Outer space — a rocket, a ringed planet and twinkling stars
• Fairytale castle — a castle tower with a flag, a crown and a string of bunting
• Jungle — big leaves, a tropical flower and a winding vine
• Under the sea — a fish, seaweed, bubbles and a starfish

The pictures are drawn in a few colours taken from your cover colour and the world you chose.

3. Age sticker

A round sticker on the cover's corner with the age being celebrated, for example "5" (up to 3 characters). Leave it blank for no sticker — Storybook never works out an age on its own.

4. Cover line

The small line above the title on the cover (up to 60 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("A party starring"). Try "The adventures of", "Once upon a birthday" or "Mission: turning six".

5. Back cover line

The big line on the back cover at the end of the page (up to 80 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("The end… see you at the party!"). Try "To be continued at the party!" or "And they all had cake."

Every piece of text Storybook prints on the invitation — the cover line, the Date, Time and Where labels, the reply buttons, the section labels and titles, the word "Chapter", the countdown units, the back cover line — can also be rewritten directly on the page: switch the live preview into edit mode and double-click the text. Section titles you have already set in their own settings (story, countdown, gifts, where to stay, getting there, FAQs) are edited in place the same way.

How each section is treated

Cover

A hardback book replaces the standard header:

• The cloth cover in your colour, with a spine at the binding edge and a debossed border
• Cover line (option 4) above the title
• Your event name as the book's title, large in Baloo 2. Long names step down a size so they never break mid-word
• The cover plate — your cover photo pasted on with a paper border, slightly tilted, keeping the horizontal crop you set, and a picture from your story world stuck on its corner. Without a cover photo, the plate shows a picture from your story world instead
• The age sticker (option 3) on the cover's corner, when you set one
• Date, Time and Where on the darker spine band — the time follows the Show time setting of your invitation's cover, and every guest sees the date you picked, whatever their time zone
• A curling corner at the cover's outer edge
• Join the story — a button under the book that scrolls to the RSVP form. It only appears when your RSVP section is visible, and never on a save-the-date page

Pages and section heads

Every section is a cream page with the page number at the bottom, on the page's outer edge. Section heads open with the section's label on a ribbon bookmark in your cover colour, then the title, a small divider from your story world and, for the story and gifts, your subtitle or gift message. A picture from your story world peeks over the corner of each page that has a title.

Message

The first page of the story: "Once upon a time…" as the label, then your invitation message set large like the opening of a picture book, with a big coloured first letter when the first paragraph is long enough to carry one.

Countdown

"Sleeps until the party": one paper index card per unit, each with a coloured tab sticking out of its top, big friendly numbers and the unit underneath — sleeps (days), hours, minutes and, if you switch them on, seconds. When the countdown ends, your completion message appears instead.

Gallery (Carousel)

Your photos pasted into the book as prints: a white border, a strip of coloured tape across the top and a slight tilt, each photo keeping its own shape — two columns on a phone, three on wider screens.

Story

Each milestone is a chapter: "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2" and so on in the order of your milestones, the photo pasted in as a tilted print, then the title, the date and the description. On wider screens the photo sits beside the text. Every milestone is laid out the same way; one without a photo is simply a shorter chapter.

Itinerary

A board-game trail for each day: every entry is a numbered space, and a dashed path winds from one space to the next, switching sides of the page as it goes. Each space has the time, the event, the place with a pin and any note beside it.

Location, Gifts, Event Details, Save the Date and RSVP

These five sections share their structure with Fotify's other picker-coloured designs (Meridian, Thread, Prism, Duotone, Confetti, Terrazzo and Lullaby), dressed in Storybook's style: cards on the cream page, rounded pill buttons in your cover colour and Baloo 2 titles.

• Location — a map card beside an address card with your address, your directions and an Open in Maps button. When a map can't be shown, the map card draws a pin with the venue's coordinates; without coordinates the address card spans the row
• Gifts — labelled Wish list by default. Every registry, payment option, charity and wishlist item is its own card in a grid, grouped under small labels (with a count) when you offer more than one kind. Payment details sit in an inset box with a Copy button, and long account numbers wrap inside the card. Pay links, scan-to-pay QR codes and wishlist reservations appear as buttons on each card
• Event Details — a card per topic: what to wear with your suggested and avoided colours as swatches, where to stay with each hotel as a mini-card (distance, price range, promo code, notes and a Book button), getting there with an icon for each kind of transport, and a full-width FAQ card where each question opens on tap
• Save the Date (Calendar) — one card with the title and the event date on one side, and Google, Apple (downloads the calendar file) and Outlook buttons on the other
• RSVP — "Will you come to the party?" with your RSVP deadline under it, inked on like a library date stamp, and the reply form on a library checkout card: a buff card with ruled lines, a red margin line and a top edge in your cover colour. On a save-the-date page, the card holds the save-the-date note instead of the form

Closing

The back cover: the same cloth as the front, a round picture from your story world, your back cover line (option 5) large in Baloo 2, the date and place, and a final Reply button.

Sections that use the shared layout

These sections keep Fotify's shared layout and are dressed in Storybook's style:

• Photo upload, QR code, Table assignment, Playlist, Sub-events, Special treatments and custom sections

Each is a numbered cream page like the rest of the book, with its content on a card, titles in Baloo 2 and rounded buttons in your cover colour. Photos in custom sections are capped in height so a tall portrait never takes over the page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I use Storybook for an adult's birthday or a baby shower? A: Yes. Leave the age sticker blank and change the wording you want — with the Cover line and Back cover line options, or by double-clicking any text in the live preview.

Q: Does Storybook work out the child's age from a date? A: No. The age sticker only shows what you type in the Age sticker option; leave it blank and there is no sticker.

Q: I picked a very pale (or very dark) colour. Is the cover still readable? A: Yes. Storybook prints the title in cream or in a deep shade of your colour, whichever reads better on the cloth, and nudges the cloth's shade only if neither is clear enough. The spine band gets the same check.

Q: I don't have a cover photo. Will the cover look empty? A: No. Without a photo, the cover plate shows a picture from your story world.

Q: Do the animations bother guests who prefer less motion? A: The cover settles in gently and the corner curls a little when you point at it. Guests whose device asks for reduced motion see a still page.

Q: Does Storybook work in right-to-left languages? A: Yes. In Hebrew and Arabic the book mirrors like a right-to-left book: the spine moves to the right, the page numbers and the curling corner move to the left, the first letter of the message sits on the right and the trail starts on the right. The cover photo's crop stays as you set it.

Q: Can I use custom RSVP fields with Storybook? A: Yes. Custom fields (dropdowns, dates, checkboxes, file uploads and so on) appear on the library card with Storybook's fields and labels automatically.

Next steps

• See How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation for the template gallery and how to try a design on before applying it
• Compare the other picker-coloured designs: Confetti for a sticker party in two colours, Lullaby for a soft pastel sky, or Prism for soft gradient light and frosted cards
• Planning the party itself? Read about Fotify for birthdays and parties, and let guests share their photos of the day with a QR code

Need help? Get in touch through the in-dashboard help widget.