Top Trends: Designer Layout Tricks
By Sara naumann

Yes, there is such a thing as a professional scrapbook designer!

In fact, these women have a scrapper’s dream job. Five days a week, 8 hours a day, they create album pages using the hottest scrapbook supplies. They have access to all the newest scrapbooking papers, embellishments and tools—plus sneak previews on upcoming releases. It sounds like a blast—and it is—but it’s also hard work. After all, these professional designers create hundreds of fantastic, technique-based album pages each year. And there’s always a deadline!

In order to create incredible, original album pages quickly, the YCS designers have discovered some tips and tricks—as well as graphic design principles that make for better pages.

Susan Cobb: Overlap & Fill the Center
Possibilities are Buttons from Using Ephemera Scrapbook Pages

Wonderful things happen when page elements touch and overlap! Not only can you fit more or larger pieces on the page, but the viewer’s eye is directed from one element to another in a clear path. The center of the page attracts the eye first; if it’s empty, the page looks incomplete. This doesn’t mean the photo has to be placed dead center; try having the photos overlap in the center, or place another embellishment there.

Arlene Peterson: Get a New Perspective

Spread out the papers you are considering for a page. Stand up to get a different perspective, moving your photos around to test different combinations. If you’re stuck on a page, arrange your photos and other elements on the background paper but don’t glue them down. Then walk away from a layout—come back in a few minutes and see how the layout strikes you. Sometimes you’ll be able to spot a problem right away and sometimes you’ll find your first reaction is, “That looks great!”

LeNae Gerig: Establish a Focal Point
Grandma’s Hats from LeNae’s Scrapbooking Basics

The focal point is that element on the album page which first attracts the eye and makes a “statement” on the page. You can create a focal point by enlarging a photo, centering it on the page or double- or triple-matting it. Note: The photo does not necessarily have to be the page’s focal point. If your photos aren’t the best representation of the event or occasion, your journaling might better portray your memory.

Shauna Berglund-Immel: Face Subjects Into the Page
Great Things from Making Designer Scrapbook Pages

A general graphic design guideline is to make sure your subjects are facing into your page: the people in your photo should be facing into the center of your album and all embellishments should “point” in that direction as well. Doing otherwise will lead the viewer’s eye right off the page!

Paris Dukes: Scrap in a Z-Formation
Natalie from Textured Tags Punch-Outs™

Did you know your eye “reads” a scrapbook layout the same way it does a book? Your eye starts “reading” the page at the top left corner, travels to the top right, then diagonally across the center of the page to the bottom left corner. An easy-to-read layout will have an element in each of these hotspots for the reader’s eye to rest.

Dream job? These women think so! Click on each designer’s name to see her designer website and find out more about LeNae, Susan, Shauna, Arlene and Paris.