Essays & General Comments

People often ask where I get my ideas from and where I start when I sit to come up with a design.  Don’t be fooled by the people who will tell you that you are born with ‘a good eye’ for these things and you can’t learn it.  It’s just not true; it is something you can learn.  I am lucky in that I do it all the time, and it is true that practise is a great teacher.  All sorts of things fire me off.  When I saw a stamp the other day in my local craft shop, I could see in my head how versatile it would be and what I could do with it.  Sometimes things sit on the shelf for a couple of years before I rediscover them and think of an idea.  Quite often it’s the words of a hymn or psalm that stand out because they are beautiful and I carry the image of the words in my head until I can get to my desk and fiddle with them.

When I start an idea from scratch I work it out roughly with scrap paper.  I usually work back wards, starting with the size I want the finished piece to be.  You get used to thinking in a size; I know what will fit onto a DL card because I have done so many of them.  If I am using calligraphy I usually scribe it out in rough now so that I know which nib to use and the space the text will take.  It makes a difference which style of script you use as the rounder ones take up more space.

So now I know the finished size, I have a rough of the text, so I know the matt size, and I have the original item that started it.  I fold up a piece of rough paper to the card size and then fiddle with placing the components.  I very rarely work in a straight line, usually preferring to balance asymmetrically, so if you look at my designs you will find backing paper that covers ²/₃ of the card instead of ½ - you will find that the text is much closer to (usually) the left, not central.  As I think this way you will find that the weight of the design (the biggest part, or the biggest pattern) will be at the base of the page, sometimes to the extreme right and then balance with something top left.

 You will hear the phrase ‘the rule of 3’ or ‘the golden 3’ (or thirds) – this is because when you think asymmetrically, you are thinking of balancing the page in three sections rather that thinking symmetrically – which puts an even number each side.   If you have never tried it out for yourself – get a card blank (any size) – put a button on the top left – then group 3 buttons on the bottom right (try different groupings).  It’s a dramatic shift if you have only put things in lines before, but it works, however you change the bottom group.  It won’t work if you put 1 button at one end and the other buttons at the same level on the other side because you have created a straight line again – but it’s not a balanced line, the buttons need to be spaced evenly.

 I don’t want you to think that you have to go away and learn all sorts of rules which make it too hard for you to try your own ideas: you don’t.  But it is so easy to get stuck in a rut because you have found a layout that works.  What I want you to try is moving things around,  If you ALWAYS put a line of ribbon down the middle – move it to the right (or down) – if you ALWAYS put your topper in the middle – move it left (or up).

 Look at any pictures you come across carefully and see if the focus is in the centre, or somewhere else – and do you prefer it in the centre or somewhere else?  Sometimes things have to be central, or it just looks all wrong, but the trick is understanding it doesn't’t always have to be.