Design Secrets: How to Simply Create Diagonal Flow

Design Tutorial by Sue Kristoff, Creative Team Member

Flow is a description of how the eye moves across a scene or image, and using flow as a design element in our scrapbooking makes the finished product more pleasing to the eye. It directs the reader to the focal points of the layout.

Take a look at the example layout. Where is the first place your eye lands, and how does it travel? Take a look at the photo.

• Notice that there is a natural diagonal in the photo, where the curtain is pulled to the left.
• The brads in the upper right corner and the lower left corner accentuate this diagonal, and your eye naturally travels along this line.

Was the title the first thing that caught your eye?

• The title is in a color that contrasts well against the background, but look a little closer.
• The smaller text on the bottom and right of the photo funnel the eye to the title.

These concepts highlight the foci of this layout: the plants in my window and the concept that my garden is an indoor variety.

Related Resources:
Check out this link: http://www.graphic-design.com/DTG/Design/visual/default.html This article is on visual proofreading, something we all should consider when creating layouts. The article is geared towards advertising and other print media, but the concepts are direcly applicable to scrapbooking. (The main site, http://www.graphic-design.com has a lot of fantastic information pertaining to design, software, business, etc, check it out!)

Layout credits:
All elements from Our Sponsor: Spring Kit (Botanical) by MLamarre of www.Oscraps.com
Font: Pristina ( http://www.dafont.com)