Two Sketches for Scrapbooking Based on the Design Principle of Balance

Scrapbooking Tutorial by
Beth Price, Creative Team Member

Design principle states that the eye is attracted to and likes balance. There are lots of resources on achieving balance in a layout. The basic idea is that elements in a design should feel visually equal across a page, and that it should have some kind of order to it. – because your eye likes it that way.

Article continued below - please visit our sponsor

I’ll talk about 2 approaches – symmetrical or asymmetrical. In the first, you should mirror the design across a line. The line can be the middle of a page or the space between a 2-page spread. You can rotate the mirrored image, but the frame should remain the same.

In the second, you can get a little loose. You can use differently weighted elements, but incorporate white space to equal them out. An easy example of asymmetrical design is to mentally separate your page into 3 columns. Put all of your elements in two-thirds of the page. Use the third column as white space to balance the elements in the other two-thirds.

Article continued below - please visit our sponsor

I’ve given 2 examples of sketches using symmetrical and asymmetrical balance. In the first, I divided the page into 2 halves and mirrored the top with the bottom. (see sketch above)

In the second layout, I used a simple asymmetrical design, where I divided the page into 3 columns as I mentioned above.

Above sketch is an example of assymetrical balance

Please watch for our newsletter this weekend which will have several more articles on designing with balance! Enjoy your new design knowledge! If you try our sketches out this weekend, please post a link here and we might feature you in our newsletter next week!