Creating clusters may be easier than you think. Let me share a few tips on how to get started and after that, all you need is your imagination. The fun in clustering is that you never quite know how it’s going to end up, if your design will go as planned or you might veer off course along the way and create a cluster much different than you originally anticipated. Not that you can’t plan and design your cluster specific to your idea but you can certainly just let it come together as you go, trying out different elements and changing their size, placement and color.
There is no steadfast rule about clustering, some prefer a realistic look, with shadows placed as they would be in real life and others prefer a more whimsical, surreal look, not building up their layers so much in a real-looking format. There is no right or wrong, design your cluster to suit your style, your preference. For myself, I prefer a more realistic look, with shadowing mimicking shadows in real life, but that is probably because I was a traditional paper scrapper for years before discovering digital scrapbooking.
Sometimes a product will dictate how my cluster starts, as it is important to my design and I might start with that; however, usually my cluster starts with a few medium sized, flatter elements that I will place on my page to get the cluster started. These few pieces (i.e. a button, small flower, chipboard, journal card or flair) will have a small, slightly dense shadow. Now I will look at what might go above and below the cluster. For the bottom layer I often choose flat one dimensional products such as paint, overlays, brushes, text or scribbles. These will go under my base pieces I’ve already added. I don’t move them around too much yet because I’ll wait until I’ve built up my cluster a bit more before determining the exact placement.
Next I will start adding elements to build up the layer, moving them above and below other elements, resizing and recoloring as desired. I generally add drop shadow styles as I place each element but often go back and change the shadow, double clicking on the FX icon to bring up the style dialog box where I can change the size and opacity of the shadow. I will place most of my cluster with each element intersecting at some point with another element but a few may be placed separate from the cluster but close by. These are usually smaller elements that don’t detract your eye from the main part of the cluster.
Building up a cluster doesn’t necessarily require many elements, you can duplicate elements and resize, recolor and warp to add variation to the piece. I often do this with flowers, string, buttons and greenery. You can also duplicate multiple layers from your cluster (hold the Control key while clicking on the layers in the layers palette to select multiple layers) and duplicate all of the layers you selected, to make a new cluster (shortcut to duplicate the layers is to press and hold the ALT key while clicking and dragging the selected layers up in the layers palette and then letting go, thus creating a new group of layers. Or, you can select all the desired layers, as above, and then once highlighted, press Control G to create one layer with all the selected layers grouped together. Then you would hold the ALT key and click and drag that layer up, letting go to create a new layer. Either way works great, it’s a personal preference.
That new cluster can be moved, rotated, recolor, resized and moved around your original cluster or moved to create a new cluster somewhere else on your page, as shown in my sample page below.
To finish off a cluster, I will move the bottom flat one dimensional elements (i.e. paint) and often will duplicate the layer, move it and then erase any unwanted areas. A final touch might be a few very small elements placed along the edges or top of my cluster i.e. sequins, tiny buttons, beads, etc and a bit a of word art strips might get tucked in. Here’s my sample page, with 3 clusters of varying sizes, each having some duplicated elements from the main cluster (the largest cluster to the left of my photo).
Start with a few elements and duplicate or add a few more elements, and have fun with it, there are no rules as to the size or the depth of your cluster, so feel free to experiment, add as little or as much as you desire.
shivani says
I love how you have explained it here Rae – that there are no heard and fast rules for clustering. That one really needs to experiment and see what works for them For someone who has always found clustering hard, this has been very useful. Thanks for sharing!