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I have a design tip for you about using the rule of thirds.
It turns out that the human brain loves threes.
We find them harmonious, balanced
and stable.
I'd been designing cards for quite a while before I learned of this
concept.
And when I look through a number of my projects.
I see I had utilized the Rule of Thirds
without realizing it,
just because
that's what felt best to me.
Here are to draft versions
of the same focal point.
I did this one first and I ended up not liking the layout because for
some reason, it didn't feel right to me.
Then I realized it didn't make use of those magical thirds.
Let me show you with this grid that I've made on a piece of vellum.
So you can see on here, when I lay this over the
image that neither the sentiment nor the center of the sunflower really hit
those sweet spots, where two of the third lines cross.
Let's look at the one I ended up going with,
and you can see here that
the center of the sunflower is pretty close to this cross point; not exact but
close enough that the eye finds that pleasing and then the sentiment is right
around this cross point. To make your own grid that will show you the thirds
you need to take and cut a piece of vellum
4 1/4 by 5 1/2 which is the standard size
of our card fronts.
I'm going to demonstrate
on this piece of white card stock for you because it's easier to see than on
this vellum.
I'm going to use
the centimeter side of my ruler.
It turns out that its
very awkward to try to
use
the inches side when I am dividing
5 1/2 inches by three.
And I'm not going to get very accurate thirds on my grid.
I'm going to measure along the long side
4.7 centimeters,
and make a mark there.
And then I'm going to turn it around
and measure 4.7 centimeters
on the other end as well.
Then I'll turn the card stock around
and make those marks on the other end.
The reasoning I'm measuring from each end is because one panel will be a millimeter
smaller
than the other two and I want that one to be in the center.
Then I just draw a line between the marks here.
Now along the short side, it does
divide evenly
by three.
So this time I'm going to do 3.6 centimeters which is one of these
small lines past the half mark between three and four.
And I'm
going to just move the ruler
and
do the 3.6 mark again.
I do that on each end
and draw lines between the marks.
And there's my grid.
And on vellum,
it looks like this. After I've drawn those marks, I'm going to use my paper
piercing tool to
punch a hole in each of the cross points.
And the reason for that is
when I'm working on a piece, if I want to position
my images and sentiment making use of those sweet third spots,
I can just take it and lay this grid over my card stock
and
make a pencil mark
through the holesÉand
then I've got marks where those third lines cross,
that I can use to help me with my design.
And here's my finished card.
I hope you find this tip useful and that it will help you create awesome
designs for your projects!
Happy Stamping!