Rachael has been a member of The Daily Digi Artists since the team started almost a year ago. She has been a wonderful asset to our team and I was very excited that she wanted to share these design tips, as they apply to scrapbooking with all of us! How to design better layouts is one thing you have said you wanted to know more about, so watch for these posts every month toward the end of the month!
Hi everyone! I (Rachael) am excited to be posting here at The Daily Digi for the very first time! This post marks the first in a series of monthly posts that will focus on basic design principles!
I recently earned my degree in Graphic Design. As I sat through the design courses, I often found myself studying how the design principles apply to scrapbooking. Many of these concepts are things scrapbookers do as second nature, without any conscious thought. I believe that, by nature, we are intuitive to what “looks good”. There are times, though, where we struggle to find the right look. We aren’t pleased with the way the page is turning out, but we might not know why. A quick look through the basic design principles can identify the problem.
Once you know and understand the six basic design principles, you can use them to strengthen your scrapbook pages. These principles are not meant to replace your personal creativity or stifle you, but rather give you a strong foundation on which to build your pages! Think of the principles as the architecture of your house and yourself as the interior designer!
During the next 6 weeks, we will study the concept of ECBARF and cover each of the 6 principles in more depth.
Emphasis: The most important element on the page should be the most prominent and the second most important should be the next in line. In this post we will talk about what the most important elements on our pages are. Is it our title? Our photos? Our journaling? How do we decide? We will answer these questions and find out how to communicate the importance of those elements through visual design.
Contrast: The principle of contrast states that elements on a page should look distinctly different from one another. Contrast is used to add visual interest to your layouts and to keep everything on the page from looking alike. In this post, we will take a look at various ways to create contrast within your layout. Color choices, shapes and size are just a few of the things that can be used to create contrast.
Balance: Balance is the distribution of the visual weight of elements on a page in order to achieve a pleasing and clear layout. This post will focus on how the placement of photos, elements and journaling can be used to create balance and harmony within your layout.
Alignment: Alignment is the connection among journaling, photographs and elements on a page when their edges line up with each other. This post will feature how alignment affects your layout. Just as alignment can create continuity, a choice to take things out of alignment can create discord. Depending on your goal for the layout, this might be just the look you want to achieve!
Repetition: This principle states that repeating lines, shapes, images, colors, textures and other visual elements within a layout helps establish a unified, cohesive layout. In this post, we will look at ways to create a cohesive look in your layouts through the use of repetition, without being monotonous. Using items similar in color, shape or pattern, your layout will have a unified look.
Flow: Flow is the visual path of movement in which the reader’s eye tracks though a page or pages. This post will focus on your layout as one united piece. Falling back on the concepts that closely relate, we will see how the finished layout comes together to create flow.
If you are an info. junkie like me, you might want to do a little further reading before we get started in February:
DigitalWeb.com (This article is written for web design, but much of the information shared applies to us scrappers, too!)
P.S. Congratulations to hesmema who won today’s GIFTaway!! She was randomly selected from those that commented in Katie’s post from yesterday about her awesome parents! She won a $10 GC to Traci Reed! Check back tomorrow to see who will win!
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Thanks for all the fabulous feedback! I am really excited about this! Each post will MOST definitely have samples and I will be happy to answer questions as they come up!
Behind in reading for a few days, but wanted to say…YIPPEE! Can’t wait to read this series.
I SO thrive on learning … DAILY!
Looking forward to your sharing here at The Daily Digi Rachael!
Have an INCREDIBLE weekend!
Hugs …
Whoooo, thank you so much for the GC, Traci is a fabulous designer so I will have an absolute ball deciding what to buy! Thank you for the basic design post, definately need help there although now I can’t get ECBARF out of my head (BARF in Australia means to throw up!)
Yessssss!!!! Such a fantastic topic, I’m looking forward to future posts!
This is super… awesome topic! Thanks so much (and for the other sites to read!)
Looking forward to these posts. Thanks.
FANTASTIC! I was just wishing yesterday that I could find a post like this. Perfect!!
I am very new to digital scrapping and I cannot wait to read these posts!
Great!!! I so need this. Sure will be hard to wait for each lesson.
This is going to be great!
Awesome topic! It will be very helpful in this digital world! Thanks!
This will be great as it is something I definitely need. Thanks.
LOL.. Well from the amount of comments this subject is getting looks like you picked a winner to start with. I too love the idea of this and hope each weeks subject will be open to questions and have examples… Needy little thing aren’t I.. He he he..
Very exciting..
Hey very excited about this
Ive been goggling and trying to learn a bit more, this comes at such a great time!
Looking forward to it! there’s always room to learn and grow your skills!
Yippee! This is so great-looking forward to learning more!
awesome! can’t wait to learn!
Great new column!
Noted down, thanks for sharing these tips!
This is great – I can’t wait to see what else will be in this series. I am ready to be a better scrapper!!
Oh! I’m looking forward to this series. I teach a scrapbooking lesson to 4th graders when their teachers assign a biography book report that’s a scrapbook page
) I’ll be excited to add new information to my lesson!
I am really looking forward to this series. I have had a desire to learn the design principles to improve my layouts and you have provided the solution. I’ll have a hard time waiting a month too! Thanks.
Can’t wait! Just what I need. (even though ECBARF makes me laugh)
Great topic! Can’t wait to dig more into design, sometimes I just stare at a page thinking there’s something wrong with it and I can’t figure out why it doesn’t look like ones in the gallery!
This is JUST what I needed! Now maybe I will stop staring at my layout wondering what it needs because it feels like it is “missing something”! I will save HOURS!!!
hahaha!
Wow! I’m so excited to see this series. I can’t wait!
Rachael this is awesome. Thank you for sharing, I’m always excited to learn something new!
I am so ready to learn about ECBARF (love the acronym!) from Rachael! I know I am going to be wishing it was more often than a once a month post! Thank you, thank you, thank you Daily Digi – your content is so appreciated.
Woohoo!! This is an awesome series for you to generously provide us info-hungry folks with here! Thank you, thank you!!
I can’t wait! I really want to improve my scrapping style this year.
Ooohh! This is good stuff! I am also happy to have it arrive in a neat little package each day.
Thanks!
I am very excited about this series!! should definitely help me out!
I’m totally about improving my design skills. I think I am okay with repetition and flow. I seem to do those well, but need help with other things. I’m in Cathy Z’s Design for Life class to help.
Yeah! Very excited about these posts! Can’t wait to learn more!! Thank you Rachel!
Awesome. So excited to learn more about page design. Nothing is more frustrating than when a page isn’t turning out and you don’t know why or how to fix it. Thanks!
This is just what I needed. Thanks so much for starting this. I’ve posted a link back to your article over at Scrappersonline:
http://www.scrappersonline.com/forums/showthread.php?522-Basic-Design-Principles-A-New-Series-at-the-Daily-Digi
yippee ~ looking forward to the lessons and improving my layouts
This is soo cool! I´ve been waiting for a post like this – so I´m so looking forward to this! Thanks Rachael!