Designing Your Memories: Balance

I would like to welcome our newest team member, Joey Manwarren, who will be doing a monthly post all about Layout Design (designing our memories, as she calls it).  She really knows design, but also how to apply it in scrapbooking!  You can catch her on her blog or on Twitter. We are so excited to have her and know you will enjoy her posts!
-Steph

Have you ever looked at a scrapbook page and thought, “WOW!  I love this page!  I have to put this in my faves file!”?  Have you ever looked at a page and thought, “Yikes, this needs some help!”?  Chances are, one of main the reasons you strongly like or dislike a page is because of the design principles the creator used while building the page.

I started paper scrapping over 10 years ago and quit after a few years.  My pages were always visually horrible, and I never understood why! (Plus there was no undo button!)  I didn’t have any training or knowledge about design – I didn’t even know that design principals & elements existed!   Even when I started digi scrapping a few years ago, my pages were still a hot mess, but at least there was an undo button and an internet community to learn from!   I discovered that many of my internet scrapping heroes were following some basic design principals when creating their pages, and I wanted in on that action!   Over the course of a year, I slowly began applying some basic design principles to my pages, and my layouts went from a hot mess to visually appealing!

It’s important to note that there are ELEMENTS of design and PRINCIPLES of design.  HERE and HERE are sites to understand what ideas are on each list.  Today we are going to talk about symmetrical BALANCE which is a design PRINCIPLE.  Balance, one of the most fundamental principles of design, can be either symmetrical or asymmetrical.  Symmetrical balance is an even distribution of visual weight on either side of an axis.  If we were to divide a layout in half, either horizontally or vertically, there should be the same amount of “stuff”  or visual weight on each side to be symmetrically balanced.

Here is symmetrically balanced layout that I made & divided it down the middle with a red line.  The visual weight is equal on both sides even though I used different sized pieces to fill the space.  The large photo on the left takes up the same amount of space as two columns of paper on the right.  (all images are linked to galleries):

Here is one example by Kellie:

If we were to split Kellie’s layout down the middle vertically, we would find the same amount of visual weight on one side as we do the other.  Kellie does a great job of mixing paper, photos, and journaling while still maintaining a great symmetrical balance.

Snowlady9900 also does a great job of having a symmetrically balanced layout.  If we divide her layout vertically down the middle, we would find the same amount of visual weight on both sides of the layout:

Here is a layout by KimJ that perfectly demonstrates symmetrical balance when dividing a layout horizontally:

The space occupied on the top of her layout is equal to the space occupied on the bottom of her layout.  Her right and left sides are balanced too!

Zanyzookeeper’s layout is symmetrically balanced when divided horizontally too.  The 4 top photos mirror the 4 bottom photos while the top journaling mirrors the bottom title:

Symmetrically balanced layouts tend to be more formal and orderly, and they convey a sense of familiarity.  Why not try a symmetrically balanced layout today?!

Wanting to learn more about design right now?  HERE are some awesome design tips, or head over to MY BLOG for some more easy to follow design pointers!

Next time we will be talking about asymmetrical balance.  Until then, happy scrapping!

PS  Debbie Hodge with Get it Scrapped has a fabulous free 12 lesson class on page design.  Check it out HERE!  It’s packed with info on taking your pages from a hot mess to fabulous!

P.S.S. Corinne was the random winner in the drawing from yesterday’s post.  She won $10 in product from Crystal Livesay!  THANKS everyone who participated!!