Happy Wednesday! It's Hump Day - that mid-week peak as we cruise downhill into the weekend! As the passage of Wednesday signifies a shift in the focus of your week and you start looking forward to the weekend (I know I do!), I thought it would be a great day to talk about shifting the focus, weight or balance of your sketches or digital layered templates.
Many sketches/templates have a design structure that lends itself well to this technique, especially those with the photos and elements aligned along the middle or one side, as well as those with the photos and elements clustered in a corner. By changing the balance of objects on the page while staying true to the original design elements, you can create a seemingly very different layout from the same sketch/template.
Today I'm using a sketch from March to illustrate some of the options. Download the layered digital template here.
This design has the bulk of the page elements located at the middle to bottom right, with some strips across the top, again with the bulk of elements to the right side, to provide balance. The title placement to the left provides some visual weight, while still leaving plenty of white space for the eye to rest.
Changing the Weight or Balance
From the original sketch/template, you can make the following changes simply by moving around the design elements.
- Move all of the page elements to the top. For digital scrapbookers, in Photoshop Elements in the Layers Palette, select all of the main layers except the background layer by clicking on the layer just above the background layer, holding down the shift key and clicking on the top layer. This allows you to select all of the layers in between without having to click on them individually. With all of the layers selected, click on the chain icon to link the layers to keep them in their relative positions as you move them. Then, click and drag the selected layers so they are positioned at the top of the page, leaving plenty of white space at the bottom of the layout.
- Move all of the page elements to the bottom. Follow the same steps as above, but move the elements to the bottom leaving the top half of the page as white space.
- Move all of the page elements to the right. Select all of the page elements and move them to the right side. You can even move some of the elements off of the page so that the weight of the page is distinctly to the right. Some of the elements may need to be hidden or deleted if they are partially off the page.
- Move all of the page elements to the left. As in the previous idea, select all of the page elements, but move them to the left side. Again, some of the elements can be moved off of the page and hidden or deleted if they are partially visible and detracting from the design. In this example, the title would be shifted off of the page, so I moved it elsewhere in the cluster of photos, papers and elements.
- Move all of the page elements to a corner. Select all of the page elements except the background and move them to the upper left, upper right, lower left or lower right corner. You can also rotate the page elements 90° clockwise or counterclockwise and then move to one of the corners. As above, some of the elements can be moved off of the page and hidden or deleted.
- Rotate the page elements and move them to the side. Select all of the page elements except the background, rotate 90° (either clockwise or counterclockwise) and drag to the right or left side of the template. You can achieve several different looks depending on which direction you rotate the layers and to which side you shift the weight. The title may need to be adjusted depending on what orientation works best for your layout.
- Combine shifting the weight or balance with the ideas from previous days, such as flipping or rotating the template, using paper in one or more photo spots or filling one or more of the photo spots with journaling. See the previous posts here or here for additional ideas.
Here are a few examples using the above sketch/template.
In her layout, Lisa shifted the page elements to the bottom. She also placed a journal card into one of the photo spots and used washi tape instead of papers - genius!
Monika changed up the design by adding more weight to the top elements on the page and shifting just one of the photos down in the bottom grouping.
For my layout, I rotated the lower page elements to the left and then shifted them to the right side of the layout.
By changing the weight or balance of the template while preserving the relative positions of the page elements, you can achieve several different looks and still maintain the basic design structure of the original sketch/template. Whether you shift the weight to the top, bottom, side or corner, the basic design will still shine through and help you create a fabulous layout. Consider the potential to modify a sketch/template and reuse it before storing it away or (gasp!) deleting it. Join me tomorrow for more ideas!
Happy Scrapping!
