- TUTORIAL: COLLAGE HEADER
- BEFORE YOU START: RESOURCES
01. Computer
02. Image editing program. (Photoshop, GIMP)
03. Lots of nice images for you to use.
04. Some nice textures & patterns for you to use.
05. OPTIONAL: A tablet - tablets are awesome things, and if you can get one then so much the better. It means that you can scribble bits and pieces all over the place, adding nice detail to the collage. You don't NEED one, but it's always good to have one. Demand one for your next birthday.
- BEFORE YOU START: NOTES
Generally, collages are about balance. Therefore, repeating the same image throughout by moving it, rotating it, and doing unspeakable things to it is a good thing. Balance also means that you should carefully choose your placement, and so symmetry in headers is often used. This is also done with a good colour scheme.
What I find with collages is that they generally look better with only/mostly their own medium in there. For example if I was making a photo collage I wouldn't add in a drawing of a bird woman, and if I was making a vintage illustration collage I wouldn't add in a photo of a celebrity, etc, etc.
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- STEP 1: THEME
Firstly, work out what sort of theme you want, and the sort of images you will use. Will it be photographs, illustrations or a mixture of the two?
Will your theme be flowers, the circus, or something else?
For this tutorial my theme will be "Parisian" (that being someone from Paris, doing generic romantic Parisian things).
Once you have worked out your theme, make a 1000 by 600px image.
- STEP 2: BACKGROUND
Generally paper textures are the best for collages. Get some here.
However experimentation is what collage is all about, so don't be scared to try all sorts of textures, patterns and colours as a background!
Copy+paste the image you want for your background onto your image, and move around/resize til you are happy.
- STEP 3: DO A DOODLE
A lot of people don't need to doodle, but I like doing it to be sure that the layout will be properly balanced. As this is a collage header, the layout will be symmetrical. As you can see it is very basic at this point.
