Monthly Muse November 2019 - Week 1

NOVEMBER 2019 MUSE CHALLENGE
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Hi everyone, Ona here to bring you November's Muse Challenge! Heck, where has the year gone???!!! Hope everyone is doing well!

This month we are stepping into the world of advertising. I don't know about you but I often get a lot of inspiration from looking at advertisements. I love how creative and imaginative some of them can be. I think we can all can learn a lot of design principles by looking at them and figuring out just what we like about them, and then apply those principles to our own layouts.

As you study them, you can see the various design components that make up an advertisement. What draws your eye to an advertisement? Is it the overall page design, the photo or graphic used, the colour palette, the typographic art or the imaginative way of photo compositing? There are plenty of components and when put together they can really make a statement.

Before I go any further, please note that I am not an 'expert' in designing, and the words and terms I use to describe various design components are wholly my own interpretation. No doubt you will have your own views and perhaps will call them something else, but for the purpose of this challenge please bear with me. Of course, you are more than welcome to share your own opinions on what you think about the different design components.


Week 1: GEOMETRIC SHAPES/USED FOR PAGE DESIGN & FRAMING
So for this month, each week we are going to explore one facet/component that graphical artists use in designing their advertisements. Each week I will provide an inspirational board made up of pictures from Pinterest, which you can use for inspirational, or you can do your own Pinterest search to find other pictures to inspire you.

A lot of advertisements utilize geometric shapes to either create a page design, or to actually frame a photo (or other object, such as a pattern). I have created an inspiration board below, featuring various advertisements from Pinterest that I believe to fit into this design category.



Things to take note of:
- notice the actual shape of the 'page', in the majority of cases they are all rectangular, rather than square. Perhaps this is something to keep in mind when selecting your page size initially, instead of a 12x12 square page, why not try an A4 or Letter size layout.
- look at how the geometric shapes have been used to draw the eye, in some of the shapes there is a photo while in others there is some sort of pattern or texture.
- how about the background colour, have you noticed how the colour has been used. In some cases it is solid while in other examples there appears to be a graduation or gradient applied. Most importantly there is no distracting patterns in the background itself.

Challenge for Week 1:
Create a page using geometric shapes. Use the shape/s to either display a photo/s or some other type of embellishment, like paper etc. or to actually design your page.
Note: This IS a challenge so please DO NOT use any templates for this layout, use your program's tools to insert or draw your own shapes. You may however use geometrical shapes, elements or papers instead of drawing them, but I really want the page design to be your own.

Here is my page, featuring a pretty rose that came into bloom just the other day. While it does look pretty simple, I found it a bit harder to put together instead of just 'throwing' stuff on the page like I usually do! I used Photoshop Elements 14 to create this page and utilized the drawing tools and shapes that came with the program. Using the grid was a great help as well!


You may create any style of layout (ie. clean and simple, artsy, pocket style etc.) you wish, with or without photos. Create any size page you wish. This is for everyone, so have fun and see where the inspiration takes you. If you want all 4 Muses on one page that's perfectly ok or you can make 4 separate pages!! It's totally up to you!

Please post your layout to the Art Journaling Gallery HERE prior to November 30, 2019 and then post it in this thread by copying the code (at the right of your gallery image) from the box under "Share BB Code".

We will draw a winner at the beginning of next month for a coupon!! You can use any products in The Lilypad store or retired products from current Lilypad designers, (just make sure you follow our gallery guidelines).

Looking forward to see what you talented girls will create!!! and of course, if you have any questions ask away!

 

oooh!!!! just out of bed and so happy to see some fabulous layouts already!! You are so quick!! Off to have some breakie and then into the gallery I go!

 

Gorgeous additions ladies!!!

 

woohooo!! some gorgeous additions girls!!!