ScrapMentor - Scrapbooking 101

Week 11 - Art Theory

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Finding Inspiration in Unusual Places - Publications

Graphics designers go to school for years to gain knowledge about creating pleasing, eye-catching advertisements, articles, brochures, and other publications. Corporations pay them thousands of dollars for their expertise, so why not take advantage of their know-how, for free?!

Because scrapbooking should be about your expression of your own creativity (along with, of course, sharing your memories, thoughts, and experiences with others), the first thing you should do is find a publication of some kind that is pleasing to your eye. It can be anything in print - a magazine ad, a flyer, a storybook - even a billboard! Anything that makes you take a second look can be your inspiration. Figure out what it is about the design that catches your attention. Is it the color scheme? The font? The clean lines? Use of texture? Shapes? Whatever it is, isolate the publication's "punch", then steal it!

Here are a few ways I've used print inspiration for my own scrapbooking, along with the publications that caught my eye.

A pharmaceutical ad was the impetus for this layout about my daughter. I loved the clean, classic lines, high-contrast color scheme, and juxtaposition of two dissimilar photos into a unified message. All of these things were brought into my own layout, though of couse the subject, color scheme, and proportions were all different.

The placement of the corner photo in a recipe from the May/June 2006 edition of Cook's Illustrated magazine was what really grabbed me. I liked how it added more interest to an otherwise sparse design without overpowering it. I couldn't bring myself to use such an off-center design without counterbalancing it somewhat, so I added the stamped sweater image on the opposite side of the main picture. This creates a "visual triangle" (a pleasing visual design concept that uses three similar objects to direct the viewer's attention to the triangle's center) and "eats" a little of the white space on the left side of the layout. The striped background paper not only echos and softens the stripes on my daughter's new sweater, it pays homage to the horizontal lines of text in the original print inspiration

Don't overlook your kids' books and magazines! They're full of punchy, colorful, quirky drawings and pictures just waiting to be "lifted" into your scrapbooks. For this layout about my oldest son, I was inspired by the color combination in a drawing in my daughter's book, Storybook Treasury for Girls. Although the story was one for and about girls, the color scheme on this particular page seemed, to me, more masculine.

I hope this section of the Scrapbooking 101 course has encouraged you to look at your books, magazines, and other print materials in a new light - as potential inspiration for your next great scrapbooking layout!

Homework

Flip through those glossy magazines you have around, but rather than re-reading the articles, notice the graphic elements on each page. Adapt something you find in a magazine and create from it a one- or two-page scrapbook layout.

Supplemental Reading

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