Scrapbook Design Principles - Repetition and Gradation

Scrapbooking, like all visual arts, is based on some basic design principles such as The Visual Triangle, The Focal Point, The Rule of Odds, and Repetition and Gradation.

Repetition means using an element several times on your scrapbook page layout. Repeating design elements such as shapes, embellishments, or colors, can be used to pull the page together as a whole unit. This is especially true for a double page layout, where repetition can be used to pull both sides together as one scrapbook page. Repetition becomes more interesting when you add in slight variation. If you are repeating circles, for example, each circle can be decorated or embellished slightly differently. Simple repetition can be a strong element on your layout. On the Growing scrapbook page, the paper pieced trees were repeated across both pages of the design.

Gradation is used to describe both gradual changes in size and also in color. Gradation creates movement, causing the eye to follow the changes across the scrapbook page.

When you combine repetition with gradation you have a powerful design principle that you can use to guide the reader to the most important parts of your scrapbook pages. In the Imagination scrapbook page I used gradation of size in the repetition of the circles surrounding my focal point picture.

You can also see these principles combined in the Butterfly scrapbook page. The butterflies are repeated up the center of the page layout, however as they repeat they also reduce in size which shows your eye how to flow through the page.