In the last lesson we made the move from focusing on design principles to looking at the basic parts of a scrapbook page. The choices you make regarding each page part should be done with an understanding of the implications for good use of design principles.
Today we’ll look at photos. Let’s get started by walking through the process for getting started with the photo part of your page.
1. Consider page purpose
In the previous lesson, we covered possible purposes for making a page and how knowing what you want to achieve on the page will drive your page parts choices. Your purpose might be one the following or even something else:
- for your creative expression.
- to provide an opportunity to experiment and/or play with product and/or design.
- to explore a topic and better understand it.
- to create a record of a something that happened (anything from a brief moment to a big event).
- to express how you feel about a specific subject and/or person.
- to convey a message to whoever you plan to share this page with.
- . . . or it may be something else . . . just figure that out and hold it in your mind as you move forward.
2. Select photos
Decide:
- how many photos you will include
- which photos you will include
- if a photo, photo grouping, or different page part will be your focal point
On “Fishing After School” I’ve included two photos. It’s the smaller photo that ends up being the focal point because of: closer-in cropping on the subject, layering (it sits on the top), and positioning in the sweet spot at top left. The larger photo ends up functioning to some extent like background. It provides the larger context for the focal photo; it’s layered behind most of the other elements; and it houses the title.
The focal point on “Let’s Do It” is not a photo but the title. The three photos are busy and not of high contrast with each other or their mats. There’s not any one great shot, but together they totally tell the story of the morning. The title, though, contrasts strongly with its background. It’s also rendered in a fun way with “let’s” on its side, and it sits at that top left sweet spot the eye is so comfortable with.
3. Crop photos & consider placement options
This is where you should start thinking about how you’ll use the design principles to achieve the effect you want.
design principle: emphasis
If a photo is going to be your focal point, find a way to emphasize it. Revisit the Emphasis Lesson from this class for a refresher on ways to achieve emphasis. These include: placement (in a sweet spot or isolated by white space), embellishment, contrast, and content. Look, too, at this article: Creating a Focal Point (Photo) on Scrapbook Pages.
To me, the focal point on “It’s a big memory” is the photo in the middle with the title coming in a close second. Note how all of the photos are the same size but the one in the middle still dominates the other two. It’s cropped closer in on my face; it sits on top of everything else; and it has a fancy frame.
design principle: contrast
Decide how much you want your photos to contrast with the background and with each other. Revisit the Contrast Lesson from this class, and keep in mind that for contrast to be a strong part of your design it needs to be obvious—no going part of the way.
This is when you’ll start to think about cropping your photos. Some options include:
- all photos the same size, with a focal photo emphasized in some way other than size
- a variety of photo sizes, with a focal photo emphasized via size and/or another technique
- one (or perhaps 2) focal-sized photos and supporting photos that are smaller but all of same supporting size
Consider how you want to present the content of your photo. Will one or more photos be zoomed in close to the subject? Will one or more photos include context? Will you apply any effects to the photo? You could render one in color and the rest in black and white. You could use special effects like a vignette to really make the content of a photo shine.
The photos on “Big” are arranged with one dominant, portrait-oriented photo cropped in close and three smaller, landscape-oriented photos cropped to show the context of the schoolyard. The three photos supporting photos are connected by their cropping within a half circle.
Check out these articles for more details on cropping and editing photos.
- Cropping Photos of People for Scrapbooking
- Speed Scrapbook Page Design with Smart Crops
- Scrapbooking Photos with Busy Backgrounds (& working with photo context)
- 10 Quick Ways to Make Over Your Photos
4. Place photos in combination with other page parts
design principle: balance
In the previous lesson, I recommended thinking first about how much space you want to give to photos and journaling on your page, and then, based upon these plans, moving on to consider your title and how much space it will get. These are the three page parts that usually determine space needs (though if you’re including large embellishment(s) consider them, too). As you make these decisions and select product and begin to crop photos, you should work to incorporate all of these elements in a design that has balance and flow (and hopefully at least a little bit of white space). Consider the relative size of the page parts and how they will play off one another. Revisit the Balance Lesson of this class if you need a refresher on approaches to achieving visual balance.
“This Moment” is a quite full page with three photos, substantial journaling, and a downplayed title. The challenge I faced was to achieve balance with the photos and the lengthy journaling–which I really wanted to keep all together. At first, I had the square photo of my husband aligned with the square photo of my son, but things were out of kilter. Sliding the photo of my husband down and putting the title above it, lightened up the upper right area of the page enough that the lengthy but less-visually-dense journaling could hold its own.
design principle: repetition
Look to your photo content for colors, motifs, patterns, textures, lines (or anything else!) you could repeat in other page parts. A color that stands out in the photo could be repeated in the title or the embellishments. Motifs and patterns can be repeated in papers, embellishments, background stamping, and any other detailing you’ll be adding. For a reminder on the importance of repetition and techniques for incorporating it (with variety!) check back to the Repetition Lesson.
In making “Cat’s Cradle, I latched onto the red in my mom’s sweater and in the yarn she and my son were playing with. Adding a red date tab at the top of the larger photo and threading red yarn through the title gave this page the repetitions it needed for flow and unity. The red yarn does double repetition duty—repeating color and the image of the yarn in the photo.
design principle: alignment
The edges of your photos are great candidates for aligning with other photo edges and with other page parts, including the bottom, top or ends of a title, the justified edge of journaling, paper blocks, and embellishment borders. Revisit the Alignment Lesson for reminders for incorporating alignments.
The arrangement of the photos in “Seeing Me With You” drove the placement of all other elements on the page. I placed one larger focal photo and three smaller photos in grid that ended up defining the borders for a patterned paper block, the titlework and the journaling. See how the ends of the journaling and titles align with the photo edges. Now that I’m looking at this page after a couple of years, I see changes I could make to tighten up the design. I would use full-justification on the journaling if I were doing this again, and, along the bottom, I would make the title as wide as the photo above it and force the journaling to fit below the other two smaller photos.
design principle: flow
And now, finally, we come to flow—though, really, flow should be on your mind throughout. Putting together a scrapbook page that does a good job of incorporating design principles isn’t something that moves forward linearly. Rather, I think of it as making circles that slowly move forward. Check out the Flow Lesson, and keep the techniques for achieving it in your mind. As we cover the other page elements we’ll talk more about this and how all of the page parts should contribute to a good page flow.
“About the Animals” is a page with a circular flow. The photos have been arranged to flow circularly, beginning with the focal photo at top left (its framing, positioning, and layering give it this distinction). On top of the photo’s circular flow, is a visual triangle of embellishments and title which serves to reinforce the eye’s movement around the circle of photos.
I’d love to hear how this class is working for you at this point. Am I telling you helpful things? Am I clear or are the connections fuzzy? Do you have questions? Comments?
Did you find this page via Twitter or a link from a friend? This lesson is the eighth in a 12-part e-class 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.
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These are making so much sense to me. When you stated the corrections you would make and why, I could picture them in my mind’s eye. It is all coming together so easily. Thank you.
These lessons are most certainly helpful, full of excellent design techniques, easy to follow with the example layouts showing each step in the lesson. I find this most helpful when thinking about my layout. Thank you.
I’m loving these lessons & ideas. I’ve been digiscrapping for about 3 or 4 yrs and had decided I needed to know more about better page layouts. I tried some graphic design books but while the basic principals were there – they concentrated mainly on text on a portrait oriented page.
This is what I needed to reinforce some stuff already in my head and to go “of course, why didn’t I see that before”.
I like seeing “do-overs” of old pages too, it gives you ideas of where to start looking when things just don’t seem right on a page.
I am learning more each and every day as I review each lesson. The process is ever revolving as you point out references with active reinforcing links. We often forget the whole of digital scrapping as we concentrate on specifics. This is a great eye opener.
I’m loving these lessons! Thanks!
I have really loved these classes. I love that I chose to get them spaced out a bit — it’s allowing me to really reflect on what I’ve learned … and it’s fun to get the infomative mail in my inbox!
So glad to hear this.
I have loved this course and have learned sooo much. I am actually getting design for scrapbooking with this course. The “flow” of the course makes sense since each course builds on the previous. way to go!
Love hearing this, Beth. Thanks so much for the note.