Creating Meaningful Layouts – Without Pictures

Posted by Aaron aka Sir Scrapalot on Sep 16, 2010 | View Comments

I didn’t have a picture of myself at school.

That was the first thing I thought of this past weekend when I started thinking about doing one of the challenges at Sweet Shoppe.  The challenge was to scrap something about the word “teacher” and I knew that I wanted to scrap something about how I feel about being a teacher.  I just didn’t have a picture to use.

I contemplated using a stock image, something “teacher-y”, but I thought that seemed really impersonal.  I had seen people do some really awesome layouts without any photos, but I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.  I had only done one in the past, and it wasn’t one of my favorite layouts.  I decided to go for it, and see what happened.  This is what I came up with.

A couple things that I learned from creating this layout without pictures:

• You can still use a template.  This is a template, and I just replaced the photo spots with papers and elements.
• It’s helpful to pick elements and papers that support your theme.  Without pictures, these begin to tell your story.  There was a great post about using motifs on scrapbook pages HERE at Get it Scrapped!
• Meaningful journaling adds to the “feel” of the layout.  The impact of having no photo is increased by having journaling that is meaningful to the topic.
• Having no photo means you can cluster more.  There’s no worry of overpowering the photos when there aren’t any.
• There are no “rules.”  It’s just important to make it great for you.

CT Member, and frequent guest poster, Laura created a photo-less layout this week using my new release at Polka Dot Plum.  Check it out:

Notice how Laura used strong motifs to support her topic (Halloween), and she created a dynamic cluster in place of where a photo would be.  Her journaling is meaningful, and she makes use of patterned papers without having to worry about making the pictures stand out.  Her layout is powerful, but playfully gets her point across.

Do you do photo-less layouts often?  What tips do you have for photo-less layouts?  Let us know in the comments below.