Top 10 Design Tips for Creating a Beautiful Design

   #6 [ Work in Spreads ]

Always Think in Terms of Spreads

A lot of different things go into making a design "look good" and look as if it had been professionally designed. Too often beginning designers get stuck in the past -- designing individual pages of a book like they did when they were first beginning the old traditional scrapbooking. Every page was thought of as a single page and scrapbookers only wanted their pages to look cute when slipped into those clear plastic sleeves.

Real hardbound books, such as those Heritage Makers produces, have spreads for a reason. The pages go side by side to paint a picture or complete a thought. Visualizing your book in spreads and using consistent papers or embellishments across the pages is one of the simplest ways to make your book look very pleasing and presentable to the viewer.

Below are examples of a consistent spread and of a non-consistent spread. It's easy to see the difference. The consistent spread easily conveys that there is a continuation of a thought and a flow to the design. Whereas the non-consistent spread looks like two pages put together for no particular reason.

NOTE: By working in spreads, you ultimately save yourself some time. No need to search for additional papers. Use what you've already found and sized. Copy and Paste in Place and you're good to go!

DESIGN TIP: Be Consistent and Work in Spreads! Because Studio 3.0 does not allow you the luxury of working in spreads at this point (only the board book does), you will need to frequently view your project thumbnails down the right hand column under Manage Pages. Also use your Preview function near the upper left hand side of your project, next to the Publish button.