But the wedding pages were dull, and try as I might, I could not find any primers to help me work out a set of rules. So this blog is about how to design backgrounds which unify and enhance images in a wedding album.
This blog could not have been written without the assistance of Peter Travis, Australia's foremost colourist, whose knowledge of colour is as great as his ability to explain how colour and layout can shape our perception of images.
1. Use of background colour as a metaphor
The front cover of my album was a stunning image which had predominantly dark tones.
The image size and shape was constrained by the type of album - whilst the album had 15" x 11"landscape dimensions, the front cover image was debossed (recessed) and its size was restricted to 7.5" x 6 ". The background of the image was the material used for the front cover.
When I originally chose a background I wanted a dark brown colour since I wanted to use leather and it only came in dark tones which I thought would make the image too sombre given it was already quite darkly toned.
Instead, I chose a light cream album cover that was consistent with the lighter tones of the bride's dress and got the following result.
But I should have stuck to my guns and gone for a dark background because metaphorically, a dark background is more appropriate. What do I mean? A wedding focusses on a couple and had I thought about the dark tones and the boxy dimensions of the image, then metaphorically, the couple is in a private box at the opera, she looking down at the stage below and he looking at her. So if the background to the image is dark, this reinforces the 'private box' nature of the image as per the image below.
2. Use backgrounds to emphasis the dimensions of the image
If your image has landscape proportions, then you should have a similarly proportioned background in order to emphasis the 'rectangularity' of the image. This follows the principle that repetition of image shapes is pleasing to the mind. This sounds easy to accomplish, particularly in a landscape dimensioned wedding album but what if your image is portrait dimensioned?
The spread below is from my original design:
As you can see, the left image is portrait dimensioned but the page isn't. By extending the background of the right image over to the left page, and by having skinny vertical columns either side of the image on the left page, the background becomes more in line with the dimensions of the image.
Other techniques to enhance the images include using a thin white line to break up the slabs of background colour to make it more interesting -there is nothing worse than acres of a single colour as background to a double spread. I also bleed the left image to the top and bottom margins of the page to avoid the sense that the image is hemmed in or constricted by the page.
Different shapes convey direction differently. A circle gives the viewer no sense of direction, a square a little bit and a rectangle most of all. Similarly, the placing of a shape on a page affects the sense of movement; somehow, a rectangle placed more to the left than to the right of a page gives the viewer a sense the image is travelling. To understand these concepts better, contrast a circle placed dead centre in a page with a rectangle to the left of a page. Somehow, if images are too centred, they became neutral and static but if they are off-centre, they have a sense of movement which makes them more interesting to look at and their shape (rectangular as opposed to circular) enhances the interest by giving them directionality.
In the first spread below, the left page picture is square and almost centred but I wanted to convey the sense of movement - after all , the bride is being ushered by her father to the awaiting groom!
In the final spread, I have made the left image rectangular and placed it off-centre. I have also extended the background of the left page to make the right image more vertical and have added a thin white vertical line to add interest to the background which would otherwise be two slabs of colour.
4. Use graduated backgrounds to counter brightness of less important objects
Our eyes naturally go to the brightest part of an image. In a wedding, this is likely to be the bride's dress but the bride's face is more important and the image should somehow direct the viewer to her face.
The background can lessen the impact of the bright white dress and increase the visibility of the bride's face if it is graduated so the lighter part of the background 'washes' out the impact of the dress whilst the dark part of the background emphasises the bride's white face.
The following two pages show how a graduated background subtly reduces the impact of the bride's
wedding dress.
In conclusion, don't play safe when considering backgrounds for your images and your wedding albums will be the better for it.
