Creativity .... where are you?

[Deborah Maia]

Hello everyone!
I'm overwhelmed by this community's creativity! I just tried one page, but it’s missing something! Can some one help me?!
Thank you,
Deborah

[OnieRN]

This is great

You've done a fantastic job on your LO. It sort of reminds me of the picture boths that you go into and get a strip of pics!

[Corey]

Doesn't look like it's missing anything, it looks great. Part of the adjustment I had to make from professional graphic design to the world of scrapping is that there are no longer any rules. Took my eyes/brain a minute to get used to such casual stuff, but once it did I see a certain intrinsic beauty in it. In fact sometimes the best thing about a given scrap layout to me is the tension.

Anyhow that's my two cents. Nice LO, glad to see you're having fun because that's what this place is all about!

[Granny]

Deborah.... If you had any more creativity, you've be working at the Louvre!!

It's wonderful. Ah... The only thing maybe I would change it adding a little shadow to the flowers and things to add a little 3D to the page, but like our steemed collegues mention, it's great as it is.

GrannyScrapPersnickery.

[Kazr]

Deborah,well done,nice layout.
Granny, you crack me up bigtime

[MaggieMae]

This is really a neat layout - great as is!

[Moonbeam]

Its lovely as it is...and the beauty of scrapping is that like art you can do your thing.. make it you! everyone has different taste just enjoy scrapping your memories for future heirlooms..but honestly the only thng you are lacking is obviously confidence in your own ability because your layout is GREAT!

[canneberge]

Very nice job. It is ok the way you did it.

[Corey]

I had another look. OK I think I know what's the thing here. You've left a generous bit of what's called "negative space" (pardon me if you already know this) and that's a tricky thing to get used to.

So basically in design there's a couple different types of blank space, in particularly "white space" and "negative space". A lot of people use the term interchangeably but some old school artists do not. The basic gist is that white space is there to buffer an element and negative space is there to offset an element.

In other words if you put a title on a page, you leave some empty space around it (a "buffer"), you don't jam it up hard against a photo or another title. This is white space. Literally meaning "instead of black" and it's critical to stuff like magazines, etc. If you have too much stuff on a page, it's unreadable. Of course the modern magazine industry has mastered the creative use of fonts to make it seem less busy, but you get the idea.

Negative space is just empty space, like in your layout, which offsets another element(s). So this gets into the world of dynamic symmetry, i.e. if you put two items on a page and one item is much larger than the other, you tend to shift them so the larger one has less space, so it looks "balanced". So in your case the title is offset by the gap beneath and the open space near the bottom is offset by the larger flowers to the left.

Anyhow that's a big part of your layout and it's a good thing to embrace. At first it's a bit tricky getting used to big empty spots on a page but ultimately almost all the world's most elegant designs use ample negative space. If you check out any design, layout, or product label from Martha Stewart you will notice lots of white/negative space. They use it strategically to create a sense of things being "extremely clean" or "ultra organized" if you will. It's actually a psychological thing which we then interpret as "high quality" for some reason. You can also find it in music, literature, dance and every other art. Partly it's about using contrast to create interest, but mainly it's about harmony and balance, i.e. breathing room.

Anyhow sorry for the lecture, just thought it might shine some light on why it seems like something is missing to you. Perhaps part of your personal design style is to leave spaces like that, I think it's a good thing and I can guarantee you it's something you get used to very quickly. On the other hand, maybe you prefer something more Rococo sometimes, that's the great thing about Scrapbook MAX!, it's up for anything.

Interesting (???) story. When I was teaching a university design class I brought in some papers and shapes for the students and did a freeform experiment. I gave everyone three small shapes cut out of paper; a square, a triangle, and a circle. About 2" across each. I also gave everyone a single sheet of blank paper. Then I asked everyone to "layout the shapes anyway you like". 100% of the time they put all the shapes on the paper. Not once did it ever occur to anyone to place a shape off the paper even though I made no mention of the paper to them whatsoever to that point, for all they knew it was for a separate excercise.

Anyhow the other thing they all did, except for one girl, was to not overlap the shapes or touch them together in any way. The exception being my prize student of all time a young genius named "Susan" who took all three shapes, stacked them like cards and dropped them in the center of the page.

Anyhow here's the conclusions I drew from that experiment FWIW:
1. We have very strong preconceived notions of layout.
2. It is more natural to separate elements than to overlap them. (white space)
3. It is natural to keep all elements well within the page.
4. For the most part we all share similar preconceived notions of layout.

[Marnie]

Wow Corey (sorry, I seem to be responding to you personally a lot tonight)...
I never would have thought that a connection could be made between your field and psychology!

The "schemas" and "mental sets" we use in life are generally quite advantageous. For example, we all know how to order from a restaurant because we have a shared understanding of what that entails.

But of course, our mental shortcutting gets us into trouble in the form of stereotypes and the overemphasis on "in the box" thinking. This is why children are found to be so much more creative than adults.

The long and short of it is that we learn (in psychology) that we have strong preconceived notions of behavior (ours and others') and people, and those schemas are largely determined (and therefore shared) by our families, groups, community, and the greater society.

Since we're sharing teaching stories. Whenever I've taught a university psych course, I ask my students to describe a "professor". Their responses reveal just the point we're making here - male, beard, glasses, tweed jacket (gosh, do those things even exist anymore??), smokes a pipe.....you get the drift. So I stand there and point to myself in exasperation and said, "so what am I?" And they all laugh, realizing the strength and prominence of their preconceptions!!

[Moonbeam]

Man!! this is too heavy for me!
I think All of my templates just went out the window...I seem to break all the rules I mostly touch and overlap

isn't it true though that Beauty is in the eye of the beholder ?
and what my dear Mum used to say I often think of... although as a kid i had no idea what it meant...

" It's a matter of taste" said the old woman, as she kissed the pig!

[Marnie]

But hey, I think what Corey and I have been trying to say is that breaking the rules in scrapbooking is not only ALLOWED, it's ENCOURAGED, and seen as a sign of a great creative mind!

And by the way Moonbeam, I've seen some of your LO's and you better NOT throw them out the window as you said!!

[Corey]

I never would have thought that a connection could be made between your field and psychology!

Absolutely. We're constantly thin slicing. That's what we do, it's our gig. It's not a bad thing in and of itself, it's how we manage. And that applies to everything from layouts to eating cornpops. I've read that humans automatically "adjust" about 40% of incoming stimuli to fit into our preconceived notions.

I read an experiment once which was fascinating. They took two people who had never met but had strong preconceived notions about each other. Then in private they showed each one a question and asked them how they thought the other person had replied to that question. Then they brought them together to exchange answers. Not only were the answers 100% wildly inaccurate, but each individual was completely flabbergasted to read what the other had thought they'd said. Then they became hurt, angry, disillusioned, etc. as a reaction to that. To me this little experiment sums up the downside of thin slicing very neatly, and is basically the reason why the world is the way it is today. If people didn't do that, things would be much different. But for some reason it was integral to our evolution so it sticks, even in people like me who actively attempt to defeat it. You can't. It's hard wired into who we are. Just when I start feeling immune I end up reacting badly to something trivial and realize I'm still at square one. Never fails.

The most boring book I've ever read was a book on computational models of thought and that's basically what they were talking about albeit in the context of artifical intelligence, but it's still definitely a snapshot of who we are to some extent. Man that book was a painful read but someone gave it to me as a gift so I felt compelled. Reading that book turned into a huge excercise in self discipline within about 50 pages.

I seem to break all the rules I mostly touch and overlap

Excellent. To me life is about art and art is about finding your own voice. That doesn't mean other people are less/more artistic, it's all entirely relative to the individual. What is very artistic for one person may be routine for another, the main thing is the process, i.e. to be happy, have fun, and enjoy life. That's why I like scrapping, there's no one looking over your shoulder telling you it's wrong. If it looks cool it is cool. That being said it's also nice sometimes to read little blurbs about standard layout stuff and add that little spice to your pot too. You can never have too many influences.

[Kazr]

Wow! very interesting indeed

May I just add my 2 cents worth

The very thing that appealed to me & got me interested in Scrapbooking in the first place was ... We are all so different in tastes & likes & dislikes & each & every one of us make every layout our own personal story,we are all unique in our own way & think how boring all templates would be,if every one of us used the same style & system, I say Hurrah for originality, & keep on bringing on the wonderful L/O's we see every day

[Corey]

Well said.