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Time for another Design Lesson!

How has your week gone? Mine flew by! My middle daughter turned 10 yesterday AND it was a Pro-D Day (so no school) which meant … PARTY!! Needless to say, a lot of other “should have dones” never got done this week! Gulp!

Oh well. Like Taylor says “shake it off!”

Did you find time to scrapbook this week? If so, did any of the past four lessons come to mind as you laid out your page? I know last week’s lesson on Proportion was probably a bit confusing but hopefully you were able to employ some of the Rule of Thirds pointers. Keeping that tic-tac-toe grid in mind when you’re designing your layout can really help. What about the other lessons – Balance, Rhythm, and Emphasis? I think most of us naturally employ all of these principles when we are creating but it’s worth a refresher now and again! I know that looking back at these concepts and my old layouts is really helping me when I stand at my crafting table. I was creating a layout recently with some fussy cut clouds and my original placement was against the natural flow of how we ‘read’ images. When I noticed that and made the switch, the layout came together much more easily. Nice to know this stuff works!

Today we are continuing our discussion on proportion – kind of.

Principle #5 – Scale

As I said last week, scale and proportion are related, and easily confused, but not the same thing. Scale refers to the size of an object in relation or comparison to its usual physical size. Continue reading →

Welcome back to my series on design principles as they relate to scrapbooking!

How are we feeling about things so far? We’ve covered Balance, Rhythm, and Emphasis over the last three Saturdays. I know there is a lot of information there that may seem overwhelming. Hopefully I’ve managed to break it down into manageable chunks and my examples have helped it make sense to you! Have you noticed any difference in how you approach your scrapbook pages? Are you looking at where your embellishments are placed to make sure they are emphasizing what you want emphasized?

Any trouble with the visual triangle? As long as you keep in mind that these are all merely guidelines to help you and not hard and fast rules that you must follow, you’ll be fine. Deep breaths!! There are no Scrapbook Police waiting to pounce if you place that butterfly a quarter inch too far to the left!

This week I have kind of a trickier Principle to discuss. It is closely related to what I will talk about next week so if you are confused after reading today’s post, I’m sure it will all be made clear next Saturday. Sorry to be so cryptic!

Principle #4 – Proportion

Proportion is defined as the relationship of two or more elements in a design and how they compare to one another. Good proportion is harmonious when you get the right relationship between elements with respect to size or quantity. It’s closely related to Scale (next week’s topic) which refers to the size of a thing in relation or comparison to other things. When you think of a vignette on a mantelpiece, you may have three sizes of candle holders. Each of these is scaled according to each other – small, medium or large. If you think of the size of the fireplace and mantelpiece in the room and how well it seems balanced (or not) you are thinking of its proportions.

Confused? Let’s break it down some more and make it scrapbook specific! Continue reading →