What are the balancing acts in your life right now?

Are you trying to get enough exercise to feel good about that big ice cream cone you had last night? Maybe you’re balancing saving and spending money. Perhaps you’re getting up a little earlier so that you’ll be done with work in time to spend time with family or friends.

Balance is about mixing and matching, giving and taking. It’s about placing two small stones on one side of the scale to balance the single large stone.

When the different parts of your life are in balance with one another, your days are easier to navigate. When the parts of a scrapbook page are in balance with one another, you’ve got a page that’s pleasing to look at and that tells your story well.

Balance on scrapbook pages

Physical balance in our surroundings is something we’re used to. We understand that if all the kids sit at one end of a narrow bench, it’s going to tip, whereas distributing the weight means everything will be stable. Achieving balance on a scrapbook page isn’t quite as clear cut: there isn’t any actual physical weight to work with.

Successfully incorporating balance into a scrapbook page design is actually creating an illusion of balance. While you might not always be sure that you’ve been successful, what you can be sure about is when you have NOT been successful. You’ll sense it.

Refining your ability to “see” visual weights and how they play off one another will help you design well-balanced pages.

Simple machines and balance

There’s a formula you might have learned about in science class that uses weights and distances from a fulcrum for figuring out how to get balance. I’m going to simplify it with a couple of cats and a dog.

If two cats of the same weight were sitting on a board with a fulcrum smack dab in the middle, the board would balance.

However . . . if there were a dog a lot bigger than the cat on one side of the board, we’d need to move the dog closer to the fulcrum in order to get that board to balance. The point you should take from this is that balance takes into account a fulcrum (or in page design this could be thought of as an axis) and weights. We’ll take a look at three fulcrum possibilities for scrapbook page design and then several ways that an element gains or loses weight.

The fulcrum (or the axis)

When you’re designing your scrapbook pages and thinking about balance there are three possible ways to incorporate a fulcrum or axis.

horizontal balance

On “Semester End” the elements on my page are balanced to the right and left of an axis that sits at horizontal center. The elements on each side aren’t exactly mirrored but they have similar visual weights.

vertical balance

The elements on “Cattle Crossing” are arranged around a vertical axis. Take a look at the inset diagram to get a sense of how weight from top to bottom is arranged so that the piece looks “right”—i.e., it doesn’t look like it’s going to topple over from any imbalanced weight.

radial balance

You can balance around a center point by having your elements all radiate out from the center. When you implement this kind of balance, the viewer’s eye should always be coming back into the center–as it does on this page.

Weight

Achieving visual balance is the act of equalizing visual weights around a fulcrum or axis. This isn’t something you can calculate precisely-but, rather, something that you’ll “feel.” Think about the following when you’re balancing dissimilar elements.

Here are some general guidelines that can help you achieve asymmetrical balance. They are not, though, hard and fast rules.

• Dark colors have more weight than lighter colors.
• Bright colors have more weight than neutrals—in fact some colors just are weightier than others. Red tends to be heavy, and yellow tends to be light.
• Warm colors tend to expand (and, thus, have more weight) than cooler colors.
• Regular (and known) shapes (rectangles, circles, triangles) are weightier than irregular shapes.
• Larger elements are heavier than smaller ones.
• As an element moves away from the center of your page, it gains weight.
• An interesting element has more weight than a less-interesting one.
• An element on the right side of your layout has more weight than the very same element on the left side.
• Elements on the top seem to have more weight than those on the bottom.
• The weight of an element increases with its degree of isolation.
• Large flat areas without much detail can be balanced by smaller irregularly shaped objects since the eye is led towards the more intricate shape.
• Filled space has more weight than empty (or white) space.
• Elements on the right side of the layout have more weight than the very same elements on the left side.
• Elements at the top of your layout have more weight than the very same elements on the bottom.
• Elements surrounded (or isolated) by white space take on weight.
• Interesting elements (this could be due to many things including interesting texture, image, dimension, color, or shape) have more weight than less interesting elements.

Symmetry . . . or not?

symmetrical balance

When you have elements mirrored horizontally or vertically (or both) they are in symmetry. Symmetrical designs are familiar and good for evoking a formal, elegant, or tranquil tone. This kind of design is like putting the fulcrum right in the middle of your board and setting two equally-weighted cats on either side. Though, you really don’t have to have “perfect” symmetry. You could have a dog that’s about the same weight as the cat on one of the sides.

Without the embellishments, “First Solo” would be a symmetrical page. The photos, title, and journaling all create a rectangle that is centered horizontally and contains same-sized blocks on each side. It’s the embellishments that keep it from complete symmetry. They are placed at three spots creating an asymmetrical visual triangle.

asymmetrical balance

Asymmetry in scrapbook page design means that none of your page elements are mirrored on the opposite side. There is no symmetry. That does not, however, mean there is no balance. Making a page with asymmetrical balance is more difficult than making a page with symmetrical balance. Why do it then? These pages often have more energy and are a delight to the viewer’s eye

Take a look at a couple of asymmetrical pages and notice the fulcrum/axis as well as the elements and their respective weights to see why these pages work.

Snow Sculpture balances three smaller, square, framed photos on the left side with two landscape-oriented photos, title, and journaling on the right side.

On “Glacier,” the photo at top right balances against the two strips at bottom left.

The photo at top right gets weight from: 1) placement high up, and 2) placement on the right side.

The strips get weight from: 1) greater overall combined size, and 2) unexpected narrow shapes bleeding off page edge.

To test for asymmetrical balance

Ask yourself where your eye goes when you look at the page. Is it moving around the page more or less evenly (thus having balance)? Or does it always return to an area that is not your intended focal-point (thus meaning you should rethink your design)?

For more information on asymmetrical designs check out “Scrapbook Page Design: Asymmetrical Balance.”

That wraps up the lesson on balance. The next one you’ll receive covers the final design principle in this class—Flow. After that, we’ll move onto the five page parts: journaling, photos, title, embellishments, and canvas.

P.S. Look for Lesson #7 in your inbox in a few days!

P.P.S. Did you find this page via Twitter or a link from a friend? This lesson is the sixth lesson in  a 12-part course called “Where Scrapbooking Ideas Come From”. Click here to start receiving all of the lessons—it’s free! Of course, if it’s not for you, you can unsubscribe with just a couple of clicks. And I’ll never rent or share your information with anyone.)

Related posts:

1. Scrapbook Page Design: Asymmetrical Balance
2. How to use journaling strips to rock your scrapbook page design
3. unity of design
4. 3 design starters for 3-photo scrapbook pages