Thoughts on Whitespace

Another dare has been posted on the Circle of Scrapping Friends blog: create a layout with lots of whitespace. So here is my response, created with Photoshop Elements using digital papers by Lynn Grieveson from the Sept. 23 Ad Freebie at Designer Digitals. The photos were taken by Todd on our trip to China.

Using lots of whitespace has never been a problem for me. Indeed, I tend to leave too much, which makes some of my layouts look half finished. When I was in high-school, I went to a workshop on how to create yearbook layouts. Three rules were repeated over and over: line up photos and text blocks, keep internal margins consistent and leave plenty of whitespace around the edges.

This training in my formative years has made it impossible for me to do anything else. I greatly admire those scrappers who can use tons of colours, add all sorts of wacky embellishments, put photos down in random positions, doodle, paint, and somehow make it all work. I really wish I could create like that, but I can't. I wouldn't even know how to start. So there it is ... but I guess it's these differences in style that make the hobby so interesting!