TRENDSPOTTING | OUT OF THE BOX PHOTOS

Hello Scrapping Friends! This episode of Trendspotting takes a look at the influences design and advertising have on the Digi Scrapbooking community. Raise your hand if you've used an advertisement or great design piece as inspiration for a scrapbooking page? I personally do this all the time. And if you are a regular follower of the blog, you have probably seen our Challenges that use art and design pieces as inspiration for the monthly challenges. It is great fun and can lead to some fabulously creative pages! So, I thought it would be a good idea to look at some of the "out of the box" ways a photo can be incorporated onto our pages using art, design and advertisements as our main influence on our pages. After all, the photos are usually the stars of our pages and thus our way of holding onto those precious memories. Let's make them really shine!

If you've tuned in for past posts on Trendspotting, you know by now that I love to spend time on Pinterest. Pinterest is my "go to" resource for finding and keeping tabs on great pieces of design and art. I even have a board called Inspiration, where I pin things that I may want to go back to, in order to lift the idea (or part of the idea) for a future page. Just look at the amazing and varied images I have pinned for interesting ways these artists have used photos and imagine the possibilities of translating these ideas to your scrapbook pages.

Inspired yet? I know I am. Let's take a closer look at why these images stood out and how they can be applied to a scrapbooking page.

1. I love how the square photo is overlaid with triangles in different colors and opacities. A few spaces are even opaque. This technique really draws the eye to your photo while making the photo a design element as well.
2. This image is really an ad for instagram magnets available in different sizes. I think it would be so cool to copy this stacking of images  in this manner and placing them on a page at an angle. Awesome!
3. The white space, the sketchy image, the font, varied in color and size. Such a neat minimal design.
4. The triangles mixed with text, cascading down the page. The monochromatic, minimal look. It just works.
5. Such an interesting approach to an architectural image. The cut out design and its continuation via the lines. Not for every photo, but with the right one, this could be a really creative page!
6. More triangles and mixed opacities. I liked that this one created a diamond shape in the middle of the piece for text. It would be cool to reverse things with a strong image inside the diamond and pattern paper or simple shapes of varied solid colors on the outside.
7. The image inside the glasses is very cool. Think about doing this with lots of different objects on your pages: a mirror, a window, a door, a book.

If you ever lose your scrapping mojo or are feeling uninspired, this can be a great way to kick start your creativity. Try putting together a collection of "pins" together for yourself, so you always have a source of inspiration waiting for you!

Below, I've picked three additional designs that have interesting techniques for adding photos to your pages. I like the idea of keeping the focus on the photos for this type of page, so I've picked a lot of clean, minimal designs. But if you are more of a full page scrapper, feel free to take the basic idea and fully dress up your page. Go for it!

8. This example, by paper scrapbooker Rockermorsan [found at Studio Calico] , isn't exactly an art piece nor is it an advertisement, but I bet all my cupcakes on the notion that this scrapper was in some way influenced by design. I love the use of triangles (so trendy) and how the photo spans these simple geometric shapes. I employ this technique often, where I use one photo and split it up across multiple frames or masks. But I admit I've never done it quite like this. I love this idea of taking a basic shape and spanning the image across the triangles in this layered manner. And the repetition of the inverse triangles, but with pattern paper, is genius. The processing on the photo really makes it stand out!

9. Up next is this cool image from a Nordstrom catalog. I love how the woman is cut out with the white border. It's a technique I see a lot from digi scrappers, but what makes it stand out even more is the repeat behind it with another highly contrasting photo. It would be cool to do a lot of repeats and add in multiple photos or pattern papers.

10. This amazing image found on thethinkingtank.tumblr.com is so cool. I love the way the frame is used on part of the image and in a different orientation than the original. I love the slightly different tones in the two images with the background image turned into a sketch. If this technique for adding a photo to your page, doesn't demand attention, I don't know what will!

So what do you think? Inspired to try something like this on your next page and make your photos really shine? If so, stay tuned for the next blog challenge on the 15th. If you haven't participated in April's yet, there is still time.

Happy scrapping!