Test Your Skills 1

Test Your Skills

Want to sharpen your design skills? Try taking our quiz to see if you can spot common mistakes often seen in scrapbook galleries! Use the Design No-no’s PDF checklist to help in your search.

Download the Design No-no’s PDF and print it out for reference.

Take the Quiz

Using the list from the PDF above, can you find 3-4 Design No-no’s in the page below? (Answers at bottom)

SHOW ANSWERS

TYPE: Type above 3D elements
Explanation: Type should never travel across a drop shadow, even big heavy type like this title uses. To avoid this mistake, make it your practice to place your title and journaling directly above the background paper in the Layers panel.
CLUSTER: Missing drop shadow
Explanation: I know how easy it is to forget to apply drop shadows. But, it’s just as easy to make sure you haven’t forgotten to apply them before you post or print. To keep this from happening to me, I look at my Layers panel and find any layers without shadows. Then I ask myself, should this layer have a shadow?
PAPER: Paper or elements from different color families
Explanation: You also could have said that the paper was overwhelming or distracting. Either way, a bright yellow paper on a page with soft and beachy tones, is a no-no. Don’t let your choice of paper distract from the focus of the page.
EXTRA CREDIT—PHOTOS: Lacking photo definition on overlapping or clustered photos
Explanation: It’s very common for a cluster of photos to run together if the photos are similar or very busy. This will make the cluster look like one big blob. Fix this by stroking the photos or adding a mat to one or more of them.

Quiz #2: An Eye for Design

Here’s the above scrapbook page with all the no-no’s fixed. See if you can spot the 3 design principles listed below. (If needed, refresh your memory by watching my Design Basics videos.)