Perspective: a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view; true understanding of the relative importance of things; a sense of proportion
My birthday was last Saturday, and the day was full of fun things and not-so-fun things. It did not end on a good note (my 9-month-old screamed for two hours and didn’t fall asleep until well after 10p.m.). The next day, as I contemplated my frustration with how my birthday turned out, I forced myself to remember the good things (a new iPhone!). And that started me thinking about perspective. Changing my perspective and looking for the good instead of focusing on the negative created a whole new view of the day in my mind. How often do we let the negatives swell to monumental proportions in our minds, while forgetting or minimizing the positives? This is one definition of perspective – understanding what’s important and what’s not.
Oh, this is a scrapbooking blog, you say? What does all this have to do with scrapbooking? Did you know that “perspective” has another definition, one that plays a role in nearly every layout we create?
Perspective: the art of representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other
Every time you use an extracted (or “real”) flower, button, or other object on your digital layout, you rely on perspective to give it that real, touchable look. On a physical layout, you couldn’t type right over a big fabric flower, and a staple likely wouldn’t be two inches long. Keep perspective in mind when you’re layering elements, and think about how big that button, flower, or doily would be in real life, and when compared to the other elements on your page.
I love how hutchie scattered the itty-bitty buttons, flowers, and beads over her page, and how she layered elements over the journaling. If her text layer had been above those flowers, strings, etc. it might have been more readable, but would be totally unrealistic!
It’s easy, at least for me, to lose perspective sometimes when I’m scrapping, since I scrap in 12×12 but view my layout in Photoshop at 16.7%. Everything looks much smaller on my screen than it will once it’s printed! Hmm, kind of like in my life, everything seems like a much bigger deal until I take a step back and look at the big picture.
Steph at the Daily Digi wrote a great post about keeping elements in perspective. She recommends printing a layout, then holding it up to your screen and comparing it to the same layout on your computer screen. Use the Zoom tool to zoom in and out until the elements are approximately the same size. Then you can use that setting to check your perspective when sizing elements. Designers sometimes create elements larger than they would normally be to give scrappers maximum flexibility, so remember to size down if you need to.
I hope you’ve enjoyed (or at least not been bored to tears by!) my mental ramblings on the different meanings of perspective. If you like my “perspective” layout, keep an eye out on Wednesday’s SOSN… hint, hint! One last note about perspective – on a digital layout, shadowing is crucial to get that 3D perspective. On my layout, I used a couple of CD Muckosky’s journal junkie “cardboard” pieces. These needed a heftier shadow, since cardboard is thicker than plain paper, but notice the little label strips on top have a smaller shadow. Not a huge difference, but printed up at 12×12 the little things really make a page pop!
My unofficial challenge for you is to scrap a layout about or inspired by perspective. Whether you interpret this literally, and include lots of cool 3D elements and play with perspectives on your page, or whether you’re inspired to journal about finding perspective in a situation (or any other interpretation!), I’d love to see what you come up with!
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