Week 6: Piecees

Piecees of my heart

Tee Gee Eye Eff <3 

I’ve been unintentionally mysterious this week! Apologies for not posting any teasers. It’s been busy over here! This week, I made you some collage dingbats. I love making collages and designing them is really easy when the shapes are installed as a font. I just whip open the old glyphs palette and get to work. 

This week, I was thinking it might be fun to go through my collage-making process and share some things that I keep in mind when making them. Of course, I’m not an expert and I just do it for fun but I’ve developed some “rules” for myself to make it more straightforward. 

Everything in Threes 

When I’m collagin’ it up, I typically keep everything to multiples of 3. Colors, textures, and the number of objects. For some reason, it’s the most straightforward way to make a piece feel balanced and easy to digest. I tend to use three colors, three kinds of objects, and in three sets of sizes. 

Foreground, Middle Ground, and Background 

Objects in the foreground should be the darkest/most saturated and things in the background should be the lightest/most muted.  This is something I learned back when I was taking drawing classes in college. It helps create some depth into the piece. I also prefer for objects in the background to be the biggest and least complex. Think big blocks of color or big pieces of ripped paper (if making this analog-style). 

Symmetry + Tension + Hierarchy 

I like my collages to be symmetrically balanced but asymmetrically laid out. What that means for me, is that there might be two objects in two corners and then I’ll put the third somewhere unexpected. Maybe uncomfortably close to a similar object or I will just avoid putting it into a third corner. This usually creates the feeling of tension which is something that makes collages really interesting for me. It’s also really important to consider hierarchy. If all the objects are the same size, and a similar hue then it typically feels flat. 

Color

For me, this was one of the trickiest things to get comfortable with. It takes a lot of trial and error to find a color scheme that feels right. Personally, I really like to use bright and loud colors but not too rainbow-y. I like very saturated colors but not neon colors. When I use the color picker in design programs, I typically try to keep the color from having too much white or black in it. A while back, I read a quote from Ellen Van Dusen (of Dusen Dusen) that really stuck with me. She said that in order to make things feel colorful but elevated is to leave out at least one color of the rainbow. For example, you could use every color but purple and the piece would feel bright but not overwhelming. 

How to use dingbats for collages:

• Use the shapes as clipping masks for photos 

• Outline the type to manipulate the vectors

• Add texture to the shapes 

• Decorate with fun squiggles

• Add gradients to the shapes
  

Of course, I never follow all of these things religiously but having some rules/guidelines helps keep some of the blank page anxiety away! I hope this didn’t come off as preachy — I always like reading about other peoples’ processes so I thought, why not! 

— DOWNLOAD —

Love ya to piecees, 

Libbie 

P.s. — If you like dingbats as much as me, check out my other dingbat fonts: Designer Dingbats and Pattern Dingbats!