More word art ideas

I am always looking for ways to creatively combine words and pictures. Here is my latest one. It's not completely original, though. I got the idea from a page of National Geographic in which they used a similar technique to display a collage of photos.

These photos are from the long nine mile, 4,500 ft climb we completed last month in the White Mountains. The trail took us to the summit of Little Haystacks mountain, across the summit of Mt. Lincoln, then to the summit of Lafayette Mountain. I got lots of great pictures and I've done several layouts already. Most are full-page photos of the great views from the top of the world. In this layout, though, I wanted to include the other photos I took along the way as well.

This technique works well with very short phrases. Even with the words “what a hike,” I used 18 photos. If I used any more words than that, the photos would be too small and the page would become too cluttered. Even as it is, I had a hard time fitting photos into the middle of the “K” and “A's.”

The font is important for this layout. Keep in mind that the lines of the letters frame the photos, so keep it thin and simple. I used the font “sans” here. Sans is a thin font without the little feet at the top and bottom, leaving more room for the photos.

Inevitable, the white text blends into the light parts of the photos. To fix this, I just duplicated the text layer, turned it black, and blurred it enough to get a very soft outline around the letters. Look at the top left of the “T.” That was completely invisible until I added that outline.

After I put the photos inside the lettering, my husband came up behind me and said that it would look better with pictures between the lines of text. I'm not sure if he really meant that it would look better artistically or that it is more economical, given that I pay for prints by the square foot. This threw me off a little, because I had intended to leave those spaces blank. I thought that if I put photos there, the page would become a crowded mess. My solution was to include photos of the horizon and overlay them on top of a textured digital paper (from Lauren Reid Designs). I think it makes good use of that space without taking emphasis away from the text.

This is just one more way to lay out a collage of photos in a fun and interesting way. Enjoy!

Getting layout ideas

While writers often struggle with writers' block, scrapbookers struggle with (um...) scrapper's block. It's happened to me many times before. I sit down to scrap my photos, assuming that the layout is going to automatically manifest itself on the screen. Then my mind goes blank and I can't think of how to start. How many pictures should I include? Should I do a collage or just one big photo? What color scheme and fonts should I use?

Ideas can sometimes feel like a limited commodity, but they don't have to be. Ideas are everywhere. No man exists on an island, and this couldn't be more true for us scrapbookers. In fact, the best way to get ideas is look around and seek inspiration from others. I get many ideas from these sources:

Books
When you go to your local thrift store, look for books about scrapbooking. I've built a small library of scrapbooking books that I've picked up for a couple of bucks each. When I'm looking for some fresh ideas, I pick one off the shelf and flip through it.

Surf the Internet
Surfing the Internet is the most obvious solution, as you are already on the computer. Search Google images for scrapbook layouts that people have posted to blogs and websites.

Scrapbook.com
Users like me have uploaded hundreds of thousands of layouts on Scrapbook.com. I scan through them every few days to get ideas. You can return the favor by uploading your own, too! This is also a great way to connect with other scrappers.

Advertisements
The most talented people in graphic design go into advertising. The rest of us make scrapbooks and blog about it. Magazine ads, catalogs, and billboards can give you great ideas about how to arrange your own pictures on a page. They also have catchy word art that you can mimic with your software.

Artists
Yes, I believe scrapbooking itself is an art. Yet we can also look at other art for inspiration. I've gotten many ideas from other artists, such as this word mask here.



Play pretend
I have had fun making layouts look like something else. There are many ways you can do this. I have made a newspaper article:




And a comic strip:



I've also seen layouts done to look like a wanted poster, a magazine cover, or an ad for a TV show. Playing pretend is a clever, fun way to depict your story or event.

Nature
Nature inspires many artists, and scrapbookers are no exception. Nature has been the inspiration of many of my layouts:





The key to finding ideas is to develop a scrapbooker's eye (yes, I made that term up). If you are always thinking about your next layout, you will constantly be inspired by things around you. You will find that you have more ideas than time to use them.