Color plays such an important part in our layouts. It gives our viewer a quick insight into its theme. It sets the mood for the story we want to tell. It brings all the elements together into a cohesive whole. It highlights the portions of the photos that are most important to us.
How do you choose colors for your layouts?
- Do you pick a color from the main photo and build from there?
- Do you choose colors that are traditional to the theme you’re covering (as in pink for a baby girl page)?
- Do you first choose papers with colors that you want to work with and then select photos to go with them?
I generally start with colors from my photos rather than those that are traditional to the event/season. For instance, in my Christmas layout below I could have chosen red or green as my base color. But I decided that the strongest colors from these 1990 photos were the hot pink in my mother’s skirt and the gold of our family room walls. I felt that these colors should not be ignored, lest they distract from the final look and feel by clashing with a traditional Christmas color scheme. Lucky for me, I had a few sheets of Christmas-themed paper form KI Memories that included hot pink and gold! How great is it when that happens?
The result is a layout that has what I would call a “groovy traditional” feel. In other words, it still looks like a Christmas layout, but the hot pink, gold, brown, green and green-blue color scheme shakes things up a bit. So the layout stays true to the photos.
My college best friend, Jim, visited my family for Christmas 1990
Try scrapping some of your seasonal photos using colors that are not the norm. It can give your designs the freshness of new-fallen snow. 🙂
Jan…I cannot believe it was 20 years ago I visited your family!! If you want people to read your blog you might not want to put my face on here:)