You remember last week when I posted about Aidan's most recent role in The Theater, yes? Well, I realized that it's all well and good how often I blog about my life, but I do need to make a page or two every now and then. So much of my documenting is being done via Project Life—and don't get me wrong, I'm loving this year long experiement—but I still want pages for the kids' albums too.
I grabbed a handful of photos from the show and designed a very simple, old school Cathy kind of layout. No bells and whistles, folks. Just words and photos.
Here's my simple page:
Here's what it looked like before I broke it apart for printing (I'll explain this below.)
JOURNALING READS: Aidan played the lead role in GRS’s first ever musical production, Bye Bye Birdie. Coming right on the heels of playing the White Witch in Narnia: The Musical, she was initially thrilled with getting the part, then the excitement waned just a bit for reasons of which we aren’t completely sure. But on the weekend of the performances, Aidan was really on. Her performance was memorable to say the least. The Shriner’s Club scene was laugh out loud funny. I had tears in my eyes watching my 16-year-old daughter trying to seduce a table full of those shocked Shriner’s Club members. The sight gags were so funny and so well done. We’re so proud of her for doing these shows. It’s quite a remarkable thing to see your child up there being simply amazing. Way to go, yet again, Miss Aidan. Your curtain call was well deserved.
DESIGN NOTES: This is a very simple, photo-intensive page with an asymmetrical balance, in the sense that if you divide this page down the center, the elements are not equal to one another. Notice also the space between the photos and the journaling—all equal on purpose to create an underlying sense of unity. Notice the inch wide cushion of space that surrounds the entire design. This adds a bit more breathing room to a content-rich page. A little note: having the black title box break out of the frame outline and bleed to the edge also adds a small element of surprise to an otherwise very straightforward design.
TECHNICAL NOTES: I designed the entire page using Adobe InDesign. Then, I moved the copied the photos and the title box into a new doc to print those out onto photo paper. Then I printed the remaining journaling and box outline onto white cardstock. I've been doing his process for years. Rather than just print the whole design onto a sheet of 8.5 x 11 photo paper, it gives me the opportunity to do the cutting and pasting that I love in hybrid scrapbooking. One cool tip: I use a program plug in for InDesign called Cropmarks from Cacidi. This little plug in allows you to add crop marks (trimming guides) to each individual photo. Why is this important? It allows you to extend the photo a bit past your crop marks for a true trim to size, so that what you designed is what you end up being able to create.
DIGITAL VERSION: I created a fully layered digital version of this template that you can find here.
Lorraine says
Yey Aiden, Yey Cathy, Yey to a full layout. And double yey to the knowledge that you haven’t abandoned the realms of full page layouts completely. Doing a happy dance over here in Australia let me tell you!
Vera says
Thanks for taking time to explain your process. 🙂
helena says
love how the small step of extending the block behind the title to the edge of the page adds such a zing to the design
cathy says
Thanks, Helen. And I always find its the little things that do just that!
Katie B says
I’m so glad you said you use InDesign. It’s a great page layout program. Just to let you know you can make crop marks around individual elements right out of InDesign (CS3 and beyond) without purchasing or loading extra utilities.
Highlight the elements you want to add crop marks to. Go to Window in the top grey bar > Utilities > Scripts > Application > Samples > (the script is available in both AppleScript and JavaScript on the Mac) double click on CropMarks and tell the script if you want crop and/or registration marks and what size you want them to be. Click on OK and you’re done.
There are a number of scripts that come with InDesign that help with layout.
cathy says
Oh. My. Goodness! I NEVER knew this. Ever. Im going to try it later this morning. : )
Becky says
Great page! What I would like to know is, how did you get those great pictures during the production? My son recently had the lead role in a school play and even though I was seated in the front, I didn’t get a single decent shot. I couldnt use my flash of course and I just am not good enough with my dslr camera to compensate. How did you pull it off? Thanks for any pointers!
cathy says
I have a very inexpensive zoom lens (70-300 Canon lens)—it was a refurbished lens even—on a very expensive camera body (Canon 5D Mark II.) Im thinking the combo is why. I was shooting at about 6400 ISO as well. So, the zoom was key, even though its not the greatest lens in the world!
debbie says
Cathy, I was wondering do you have a place where I easily access all your digital help videos that you have posted?
Thanks!
cathy says
Yes! All of my videos are at Vimeo:
videos
Jeanne Pellerin says
Fantastic!
debbie says
Thanks!
Kathy says
Love it!
cathy says
I seriously cannot believe I didnt know this. Thanks again, Katie. So cool!
Karen Freeman says
Great photos, great memories recorded, great layout. Very Cathy – just love it. Thanks for the tips too.
Marilyn says
Cathy, I assume the word ‘Spanish’ is typed in Amelie font? When I use the font, my letters don’t connect. What am I doing wrong?
cathy says
Marilyn, if you are in Photoshop you need to check the letter spacing/tracking. It needs to be set to 0. Does this make sense?
Marilyn says
Wow! I can’t believe you actually answered me! How wonderful you truly are. I’ve researched online about how to change letter spacing, but can’t find the ‘character panel’ in my photoshop. It isn’t available on my Option Bar(my Option Bar doesn’t have the toggle switch mentioned) or Menu Bar: Window.
Any suggestions?
cathy says
Are you using Photoshop Elements or Photoshop? That will help me answer correctly! : )
Marilyn says
I’m using Photoshop Elements 8. Researching this problem online, I read that Photoshope Elements 8 didn’t support kerning or tracking. Since I was using a free version of Amelie, I went ahead and purchased it from fonts.com, hoping it would solve issue.
Problem persisted, so I sent email to their tech support. Although I trust your concise solutions more than any tech support, I know you are busy and I don’t expect you to hold my hand through this.
I apologize ahead of time for the length of this email, but I want to thank you appropriately for the blessing you have been to my life. Let me explain.
I am a 60 YO grandmother of seven. I have had fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue for years, and am bedridden for the most part. I do whatever I can from bed, but my absolute favorite thing to do is scrapping the grandkids. I also enjoyed making a five generation family history book for all my relatives.
Because of you, I can now do this digitally. Because of you, I have the templates and Photoshop skills to do it. Because of you, my creative skills are tweaked and tutored. Because of you, fresh ideas keep me scrapping and creating when my well has run dry. Your blog is my first go-to place each morning.
OK, so I’m getting tearful. That is just how you affect me.
Thanks for sharing your immeasurable gifts with so many. You have enriched my life and the lives of my family. ‘Thanks’ really isn’t a big enough word for that.
May the Lord bless you and yours.
cathy says
Hey Marilyn, I wonder if its because of the free version of Amelie? Because if I work in PSE, and i create type using Amelie, the letters are connected. : ) Sometimes with knock off fonts, they dont have letter spacing designed into them. : ) I wish you happy scrapooking! I love that you are being creative and saving your stories for you and your family! : ) Blessings to you!