Liz is one of my favorite scrappers. Her pages are embellished but clean. She picks kits that complement her photos. And one of the things I've noticed lately is that she often uses all capital letters in her titles - both in her pages and in her templates.
Using all caps does not come naturally to me, which is why I noticed the trend in her templates. I asked Liz if she uses any guidelines for her title work. She admitted that she doesn't put much conscious thought into it but goes with what looks the most pleasing. However, we both looked through her templates and found some patterns, and I think they are great guidelines for title work.
Capital letters have straight lines and line up easily. They work well with page designs that also have strong lines. Here are two examples from Recyclables 40. Both pages have strong angled lines and the titles line up with the arrows.
Lowercase letters have a lot of curve and flow. They work well with page designs that have a lot of curves, or are more playful and clustered. Here are two examples from Recyclables 28. When I looked through all of Liz's templates, I noticed that in templates with strong circular elements, she almost always uses lowercase titles.
Uppercase Letters are thick and bold. They work well when you want a title to stand out or provide a strong textual element to your page. Here are two examples from Recyclables 41. In both templates, the title work plays a strong visual role in the design and is the first element that draws my eye.
Lowercase letters, with their thinner size, will not compete with your photos. They can work well with large photo designs or pages with several blocked photos. Here are two examples from Keepin' It Real Double Templates.
These guidelines for using uppercase and lowercase titles are not hard and fast rules that you always have to follow. I think they give us some ideas about how titles work with the rest of a page. Sometimes we want our titles to be bold and stand out. Sometimes we will want our titles to take a lesser role so the photos are the star. And of course, if you are working with alphas instead of fonts, you might be limited in what is available.
I want to leave you with some eye candy - that is, some of Liz's pages using uppercase and lowercase titles. First, here is a page with several blocked photos, which definitely are the focus of the page. The lowercase title stands out in the corner with its contrasting colorwork, but it doesn't distract from the photos.
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| Simple Journal Card Inspired Templates 1 by Scrapping with Liz Chinese Takeout by mle Card |
The following page uses an Artsy Journal template. Those designs are usually very playful and random, but this particular one has several photos in rows on the right-hand side. The photos make for strong lines, and the all caps title work emphasizes those lines.
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| Artsy Journal Templates 4 by Scrapping with Liz Merry and Bright by Bella Gypsy |
Here is a page with a bold wavy line across the page, and the lowercase title work nicely flows along that curved edge.
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| Wavy Templates 1 by Scrapping with Liz Storytime by Kristin Aagard |
This page uses a bold uppercase title which quickly, and efficiently, tells you the topic of the page.
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| Recyclables 27 by Scrapping with Liz All Organic by Sugary Fancy Designs |
Keep these ideas in mind the next time you want to build a title that works well with your page design. Happy scrapping!
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