Using Tone on Tone

Have you ever worked on a layout and felt that it is missing something, but everything you tried just wasn't what you were envisioning? This seems to happen to me all of the time. I work on a project and am pleased with the overall look, but feel like it may be a bit too plain, or I feel like I may want something to spice it up without overwhelming the photographs. Here is one option that I have been very happy with......using tone on tone to accent.

Many of my layouts use several different paper patterns that go well together. I like this overall look but sometimes I want a bit more than just the paper combinations, but at the same time I still want the photographs & the title to be the main focus. An example is the layout below. When I completed the layout and had added the photos, the title, and the patterned paper grids/rectangles, I felt the overall layout was a bit flat and I wanted to give it some dimension and embellishments. So I cut words out of the same paper patterns. To give it some thickness (more like a chipboard effect), instead of cutting out each word just once, I cut out three of each, and then stacked them on top of each other. Since I was placing them on a grid from the same paper pattern, I inked the edges with a brown ink, in order to make them stand out a bit.



Here is a close up.



The same concept can be applied to shapes in addition to words and letters for some extra pop to your pages.