When designing pages for your scrapbook, the two most important elements will be design and color. Even if you have great designs, without brilliantly coordinated color schemes, your album will be nothing more than mediocre. Choosing good color combinations does not have to be difficult. By following a few simple steps, you can use color to make a statement in your album.
Black and White
The two most effective colors to use in your album are black and white. Both create a clean slate for your pictures and embellishments. White tends to hide as a background color, while black will give you a bolder look. If you have black and white photographs, these two colors work very well on the page, but your pictures will stand out more if you also add a third and maybe even fourth color to the mix. Beware of using too much color with black and white pictures; you will distract the eye from the photograph.
Contrasting and Complementing Colors
Just as black and white are opposites, every color has its exact opposite, and these two colors usually work well together because they balance one another on the page. To find a color's opposite, you can use a color wheel. The most basic pairs are purple and yellow, orange and blue, and green and red. Another way to group colors is by using complementing colors. Three colors that are next to one another on a color wheel (blue, purple, and red for example) will create a nice effect.
Color Families
Yet another way to think about colors is to chose a single color (brown for instance) and use all the tints and shades of that color family (tan, medium brown, chocolate for instance). This works stunningly well with black and white photography as well, just as black and white do. You may even try using all the colors in a family plus black and white for a modern look.
Choosing Colors
Once you have an initial color to use as a starting point, choosing colors to create your layout is not difficult. However, how do you choose that first color? If your page has a holiday theme, that might be easy, but in all other cases look at your photographs for a cue. If your subject matter has bright blue eyes, for example, use blue papers that will showcase this. Also try to pick colors that will complement the idea behind the pictures-a child's birthday party will probably look better with bright colors than natural browns and greens. In the end, go with your gut and experiment with color and design in your everyday life, and use this as inspiration when creating pages.
by Tom Ambrozewicz
