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The Topic:
Sara Gleason from (Plant Your Story and The Lilypad) joins today’s panel today to talk about titles. Do layouts need titles? Where did the tradition of creating titles come from? How can we get past corny cliches? What are our favorite methods for creating titles?
Joining the Discussion:
Sara Gleason
Peppermint Granberg
Katie Nelson
Steph
From The Mail:
- Adobe Creative Cloud Photographer Bundle
- Creative Cloud FAQs
Show Notes:
- Titles Don’t Have to Be On Top
- Designing Creative Titles
- 15 Favorite and Free Fonts for Titles
- Fabulous Fonts for Titles
- Terrific Titles for Scrapbook Pages
- Cutting Out Titles
- Title Techniques
- Inspired by song lyrics and titles
- Katie’s favorite title fonts (Impact • Bebas • Lobster)
- A Letter From Fred video
- The Page with 14 Alphas
- Debbie Hodge, Maven of Titles (Follow the rabbit trail for more title-y inspiration)
- Alphas by CD Muckosky
Picks of the Week:
Sara: StoryCorps (YouTube)
Peppermint: Arc Discbound Notebook System • Martha Stewart’s Discbound Notebooks
Katie: Studio Captivated Visions blog
Steph: Sony QX Camera
Sponsors:
For the best deal in digital scrapbooking, become a member at TheDailyDigi.com.
So, it’s been forever since I’ve commented on a show, but I had to stop listening and comment immediately this week. I was very close to cancelling my subscription to Adobe CC when I heard from you guys that they were going to be offering PS and LR for $9.99 a month. I immediately called Adobe only to find out that the nice little man I was talking to had no idea what I was talking about.
After sitting on hold for 5 minutes he came back and confirmed what I already knew. Yes, PS and LR for $9.99 a month but not until September 17th or 18th. Yea! This makes me so happy!! Thanks for the info…now I have to go finish listening to the podcast.
I’m glad you posted this! I called Adobe today and they moved my subscription over from the full suite to the photographer’s package. Photoshop and LightRoom are the only programs I use so there’s no need to pay extra for all those other programs. The $9.99 a month price tag is much more reasonable to me, especially since I do typically update to each new edition anyway.
I was going to suggest calling too. Earlier this year they lowered the price for education subscriptions from $30 to $20. I called and they would not do anything for me (I was locked into a year contract). They said I could email a complaint, so I did. I didn’t expect to hear back, but a couple weeks later, they called me back and let me cancel my plan with no penalty and sign up under the lower price. It never hurts to ask. If you have a Lightroom and Elements, I’d at least give it a shot, and email them if they won’t accommodate. You might get a call back too.
Thanks for another good show! I really appreciate the many good suggestions about titling and journaling. I don’t enjoy writing and nearly always leave my journaling and titles for last. I can’t wait to put some of your ideas to use and get scrappin’.
Love, love, love titles! I think I love the actual title more than the title work (hence Anna’s Title Builder LOL). I really like clever titles on my pages. Like Katie said, it draws you into the journaling or photo to take a closer look. If a kit has an alpha in it, I’ll almost always use it. Alphas are one of my favorites things in a kit. If it doesn’t, I will look for a neutral krafty type alpha or just use a stampy or chunky font. But, I really prefer the alpha. I’m pretty sure almost all my pages have titles. With the trendy in banners, I love to layer a banner over my alphas. And, I tend to staple or glue my letters down too. Can’t have those titles falling off the page.
Thanks for the sweet words at the end.
You guys are awesome too!
My guess is that you could look at any page with any sort of text on it and you’re mind would identify a word or phrase as a title, even if it were created as a title-less page. I don’t know if scrapbooking had a title evolution or if it just acknowledged then embraced the psychological/scientific principles of design do apply to scrapbooking.
In the past year, I’ve been falling in love with titles as a design element (most likely because of Debbie Hodge and her title mavenry). I like the way they reinforce the story and add an extra bit of omph on the page even when they aren’t the focal point. When you have a lot of photos or when you have some not so great photos, a good title can be used as a focal point and keep a page balanced.
Plus, fonts, whether traditional, alpha’d, word art’d or digitally stamped, are awesome in general. There’s nothing better than finding a fun, new title font and letting it shine on your page or falling in love with a word art and realizing it ties in perfectly with your story.
I want to add the most recent title article from Debbie Hodge at Get It Scrapped because it’s fun and it’s a great way to show off fonts if you’re a hoarder like me: 2013/09/scrapbooking-ideas-for-ransom-note-titlework/
There’s a video of the QX10 working with the iPhone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcWLiR9qNqw fantastic idea
ARGH.. I was so excited for a minute when I thought that I could move up to PS from my current PSE (I also own Lightroom). $10 a month is reasonable but $20 just for PS is too much for a hobby. Oh, well…..
As a paper scrapper I was at first horrified by the idea of having no title but I kept listening, and on the next page I created I was struggling with title placement when I realized the journal card I was using had a phrase that would suffice. If I hadn’t just listened ai probably would’ve struggled for another hour finding a place for a title. Thanks for opening up my mind!
Thank YOU for sharing!
Oh my gosh, Peppermint! Your pick this week was life-changing for me! I have been looking for a planner/notebook for MONTHS, but have just not been able to find one that has the features that I need. The Arc system is perfect, as it is totally customizable. I checked my local Staples, and of course they don’t have it, so I am off to order it online! Thanks for another amazing pick!
Awesome! It’s a little embarrassing how excited I am about it. The other day I punched one of my favorite 3×4 cards and added it in front of my To Do list. It makes me smile. I’m in love with the idea.
I’ve never thought about this a whole lot, but as you talked, I realized that having a title is important to me pretty much just because it seems like it’s part of a scrapping formula. I loved what Sara (or Peppermint?) said about when the journaling is intimate, it seems redundant or silly to add a title just because. Made total sense to me. I will say that my favorite title go-to is to use a plastic alpha (Sahlin Studio’s specifically) because it allows me to put a title on the page for visual interest, but because it’s see-through, it is more subtle.
Also just wanted to say how much I LOVE Sara Gleason’s kit. They are so full of color (many times pink, which is so fun and girly) and how much I love that she includes so many different styles of flowers instead of just 2 or 3 in same style but varying colors. Thank you, Sara!!
The Sony lens is peer to peer wifi, so you don’t need a router wifi connection. As long as they’re not too far away from each other. No NFC needed!
That Sony QX is *really* interesting, but I hope it has a wrist strap. Lens in one hand while trying to operate my phone one-handed in the other? I would drop both of them. Repeatedly.
It comes with a wrist strap
Off topic question: I’ve decided to create a “Decade in Review” photobook. I plan to use the coupon for Adoramapix (thanks Steph!) and am currently following the guide on planning an album or photobook by Liz from Paislee Press and Audrey of Audacious Designs (Daily Digi 2/2010). Question: is there some sort of general edit, layer, or action I can add to the entire book in Lightroom or PSE to balance the pictures and give the pages more cohesion? I forsee my biggest issue will be noticing the difference between cameras, who took the pictures, and when they were taken. Due to time, I plan to keep the edits to a minimum and basic. Thanks for all you do!!
Hi Elizabeth!
I don’t know of anything like that, but there are two things you could do for cohesion. 1) Use a set of templates throughout the book. If you get a set of 4 or even 8 in the same style from the same designer, you can rotate and flip them around for an almost unlimited set of different two-page spreads. And yet, because they are all in the same style or feel, the book will seem cohesive. I did my 2010 book with Janet Phillip’s templates, sprinkled with some double page Yin’s for event pages. It worked out really well. 2) Apply the same photo effect/style or action to each photo. Whether it’s converting them all to black and white or going with a retro filter that you apply to every one, that will even out the color tones throughout the book and bring cohesion. 3) Use the same kit or kits with the same color scheme from the same designer throughout the book. No matter what photos you have on the page, if the graphic elements coordinate throughout, the photos will stand on their own.
And, There is nothing wrong with your photos looking different throughout the book. That’s not really something I’ve never worried about and I’ve always loved my books… from everyday annual albums, to event albums for vacations things like vacations, to special heritage albums to celebrate birthday milestones… I used whatever pictures I had, made each look the best it could on it’s own, and went with it.
Good luck with your project. I’m sure whatever you do it will be a precious keepsake!
Thanks Wendy for responding! I like the idea of using different template styles to separate everyday photos from events. I think I’ll use different templates or collages to separate my everyday from vacation pics because I always take a ton while vacationing and they usually have their own book or album.
Thanks again!!
Great episode! It was interesting to hear so many different perspectives on titles. There are so many more reasons (and not reasons) for titles than I imagined. I’m one that spends the most time for any page on coming up with my titles and often want to throw up my hands and go without. However, these days, my design/style automatically include space and balance for titles, even when I don’t know yet what the exact words are, and it takes more time to fill that space with something else than to come up with some relevant word grouping, so I always come up with some sort of title *eventually*.
When I first started scrapbooking, with paper, I didn’t use titles at all. Then I needed some letters for a design idea (I think this was for layout #3); I bought the original Sizzix and the uppercase Lollipop alphabet and I had so much fun making letters that nearly all of my layouts had die-cut titles after that.
I never got into alpha stickers; the ones I have came with kits I bought. I use them when I have them, but when the e’s, i’s and a’s are gone, I don’t know what to do with what it left. I much prefer punching my own letters. Digitally, I prefer alphas that come in a kit but will make my own if there isn’t one rather than seeking a coordinating one elsewhere.
I was so excited when I discovered TDD tutorial on making alphas with the white outlines (I think those are Steph’s “sticker” alphas). They remind me of die cut alphas and since learning about them, that’s all I want to do for my titles.
I do use word art for titles also, although I don’t use them on more than one layout as a title. I might use the words, or the sentiment, but not the exact element as a title again because of the way that I identify my pages in my head — I use the title as a memory prompt, where I can read a file name and picture the title on the layout in my head and know exactly what the layout looks like and vice versa (I can picture the layout and instantly recall the title and part of the filename.)
I don’t usually comment, but I just finished a layout and your show about titles helped me make a decision on the title. I have layouts with and without titles, and while I LOVE to make really fun titles with lots of different alphas and interesting placement, etc, they do take a LOT of time. One of my favorite things to do is to use word art as title or journaling cards. I also love how word art in a kit can really inspire my whole layout. I also appreciated Katie’s comments about how she likes to take a phrase or a word from the journaling and make that her title to help tell the story. Enjoyed the show, as always. Thanks so much for your time each week!