Repetition | Digital Scrapbooking Skills

One of the major principles of design is repetition. Many times in art or literature, repetition is used to bring attention to a particular detail or to emphasize something of importance. In a work of art, a vertical line might be repeated to give a piece height, or a shape might be used multiple times to evoke a certain feeling from the viewer. The same is true in the design of a scrapbook page. Steph at the Daily Digi wrote a great article with Debbie Hodge about this design principle here . She has many examples of ways to use repetition on a page effectively, from repeating a color or a shape to repeating themed elements. Chelle’s team members have given us a couple of examples to illustrate.

First, Leslie has made a page repeating the color of elements and repeating the use of one element in particular, the staple. First, the monochromatic look of her page gives the reader a true sense of the environment of the cave. The tour through Mammoth Cave is an incredible one, but there are very few colors to see when only using a flashlight. The overwhelming presence of dirt and rock in the cave is captured expertly by using the tans and browns in the On the Trail kit and by using a sepia tone for all the photos. The use of staples added to attach the photos to the page leads your eye from one photo to the next and draws the reader into the page.

Jenn also made a page to demonstrate repetition. She chose to repeat a shape, namely a circle, in a vertical line down the side of her page. With the sharp lines of the blocks on her page and the vertical nature of the list, the circular elements of brads and flower centers bring a nice contrast to the page, and they add to the emphasis that this is indeed a list to be read from top to bottom. She has also used careful placement of the red elements from the kit Naughty or Nice to guide readers. Red is such a strong color, it is always helpful in repetitions, and by having the title in red and then several red elements down the red strip, the eye is drawn down the page to read the list in order. By the way, her list has several items I would love to have, if any of my family happens to be reading this post. HINT HINT

If you haven’t stopped to read that post I mentioned earlier, you can get to it here, also. It has lots of helpful examples for using repetition in a scrapbook page and is definitely worth the read.