Surely, starting with a blank canvas and letting your artistic soul take the wheel feels great. However, that’s not always the case since the inspiration fairies work on their own timeline. In such cases having some “rules” at hand can work wonders to make an eye-catching and cohesive layout.
I am sure there are quite a few “rules” for design of course and I am not an expert in this, but I am here today to share my 4 tips on making a scrapbook layout look cohesive.
Image size and placement
Since we are talking memory keeping here I presume that you will use at least one photo on a page. I usually start with the placement of my photo(s). Images are powerful and a core part of design since it attracts the human eye. Depending on the size of the photo and size of your page you can place the image in several places. Here are a few examples.
Here you can see that my photo kind of mirrors the left page.
Here my photo is placed a tiny bit over the center of my layout.
And here I have chosen to place my photo at the top of the page.
And here you can see my photos at the very bottom of my page. If you look at these examples you can perhaps see how the size and placement creates different designs.
Font types and size proportions
When I started out scrapbooking in 1999 I liked to use all the fonts! When I look back at the early pages I did I see how messy they look to my eye. I love them, don´t get me wrong, but my style and sense of design has become better. So my tip for you regarding font use is to not use too many on the same page. For example when the title uses a cursive font, or in this case I made my title using a digital stamp, choose a good and easy “reading” font to compliment the cursive.
For this layout I used the trused Times New Roman font for my journaling, since I had an intricate title. It makes it easy for the eyes to read, without taking away from the fun of cursive fonts.
This can also be achieved with thickers and alphabet stickers ofcourse! I have use my typewriter for the journaling here. My digital font version favorite is Typewriter for me.
Hierarchy
To achieve a cohesive design on your scrapbooking layout you can have hierarchy in the back of your head while creating. By this I mean just seperate the most important info, that being the photo or journaling for us right, from the rest of your design. You can do that by using a big photo, mat your photo with one or several patterned papers or perhaps sewing around your journaling area, adding embellishments at the very last step.
Here are a few examples.
You can see in the example above that the photo and the title has the leading part.
By using a zoomed in photo and a zoomed out one, the eye wanders to the those first. Using strips of journaling, it creates a focal point too.
Here I have matted my photo to bring it forward.
The rule of third
I use the rule of third in embellishments on my layouts. It is an easy rule; when you add a flower or enamel shape to your layout, look for ways to add three of them.
It doesn´t have to be the same kind of embellishment, here I have used the color pink and added it to three locations on my page to draw it together.
Here I have used gold embellishments of different kinds.
I hope that these tips can be useful for you in your scrapbooking design! Once you have a chance to read the article I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic.
What’s your go-to method to find your cohesive layout style, especially if you’re struggling with putting your layout together?
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