7 Principles of Card DesignMay 15, 2017 |
Hi crafters! I have lots of fun things to share with you in this blog post and first off is this infographic I have put together on my 7 principles of card design. I ran a workshop at the Mulberry Bush craft shop in Thatcham recently and the theme of the workshop was clean and simple cards. I think in order to make really effective CAS cards you have to have a really good design, but lots of people don’t know where to start, even if they have been crafting for years! Lots of people say that their designs just look wrong, or don’t come out the way they intended, and they can’t put their finger on why. So I’ve put together this guide to hopefully help you start to get to grips with the theory.
Of course there are lots of amazing cards out there which throw any number of these principles out the window, but if you’re not sure, they are a good place to start! Oh and Piktochart might just be my new favourite thing. I had SO much fun making this! Yes I made all the little card designs out of squares and circles and rectangles and hearts and hexagons ^_^
Next I wanted to show you the card designs I did for my 7 principles of card design workshop.
Both of these cards use the principles I talk about in the infographic above. The first one has a clear focal point with the bee in the circle (dominance and hierarchy) plus the circle design is echoed in the wreath paper (repetition). We have contrast in the form of colour vs kraft, hard lines (geometric shapes) vs soft lines (twine and bow) and I have also added a little bit of texture by tearing the edges of the background papers rather than cutting them straight.
For the second card, dominance and hierarchy is again used as the card has a clear focal point (the sentiment), but then the eye travels to the secondary elements – the bees and then the star sequins. The card makes use of white space, but adds a little balance with stamped honeycomb designs in each corner. I mention in the infographic that things often look good grouped in threes, so here we have a trio with the two bees and the sentiment and a trio of star sequins. You might have noticed that the card itself is divided in three as it uses the lower third of the card for the main design.
If you do happen to live near Thatcham (or like to travel!) and would be interested in future StickerKitten workshops then please do pop over to the newsletter signup page and register to receive lovely emails from me where I’ll give details of future workshops, amongst other things.
And finally, in other exciting news, I AM GOING TO BE ON TV! You can see me live on Hochanda at 8am this Saturday (20th May, 2017) presenting the Bee Garden range. There will be some exclusive bundles available including some embellishments you haven’t seen before! I will be sharing sneak peeks of these on social media over the next couple of days so keep an eye on my Facebook page, Twitter feed and Instagram to find out more. In the meantime, happy crafting!