Design Principle 4: Proximity

We are on the last week of my 4-part design prinicples! This last one is called Proximity and the idea is that things that are related to each other are close together. Now, Since I make finished word art, I put the words close together, if you were doing a title for a page, I don't think there would be any problem with placing part of the title at the top of the photo and the rest on the bottom. As long as they are close to the photo, you are still following proximity.

I almost always put each word of my title on a different layer because I want to move them closer together. You can use that same alpha toolbar I showed you in the last tutorial to space the rows differently, which I use often when I am journaling if my text doesn't line up with the journal lines. You can find that tool where you see it on the screen:


Credits: Steampunk Quick Page

But then when I have several rows of words and I am making word art, I will definitely put them on different layers.

Now, you might see me play around with placing words even on top of each other. When I do this, I try to make sure to also include the principle of Contrast so that each word is distinctive enough.


Credits: Steampunk Word Art Clusters

I often will add a stroke to the word on top too so it can have a drop shadow and stand out more, especially if it was a more dainty font. You can see this below:


Credits: Wishes and Wings Word Art Clusters

Here you also see my proximity tool with word art is sometimes to make the words touch each other and then use Contrast to make sure they stand on their own and don't get lost. I placed "key" and "heart" on different layers so I could more easily position them as close together as I wanted.

Play around with these tools and I'll see you next week with another tutorial for making your layouts and designs great!