Customer Reviews

Mastering Scrapbook Page Design with Michele Gerbrandt

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This book is a great tool for beginners. It has a bit about everything from techniques, to page layouts, along with before & after examples that shouw design principles. I borrowed this book from the library and found it such a great guide book - I bought it!

This is a very good book for any level of scrapbooker with lots of good, basic information on color theory and layout design. I think a beginning scrapbooker can get a lot of good information about how to create a layout - but this book does not discuss how to organize photos, journal or create an album - so it is not a good "how-to" book. I would try the Scrapbooking for Dummies, etc. series if you want to learn how to scrapbook from a book or look-up a local Creative Memories consultant. This book is better used to inspire and trouble shoot. I often refer to this book when I am working on a layout and something is not quite right, but I'm not sure what. Reading this book usually helps me figure out the best color schemes to use or how to establish a focal point for my layout. In addition, the layouts are really good, with up to date product lists.

I have been making digital scrapbook pages for the past 2 years. I bought this book as part of a three book deal from a book club and I absolutely love it! It teaches you how to evaluate your pictures and choose the best possible layouts and color for them. It even has before and after pictures of pages and gives reason what made them better so you can see the rules and logic applied. Before I had several pages that I really was proud of, but now my pages really stand out and I'm getting better everyday! It made me go back and redo some previous pages that just didn't seem to work.

Mastering Scrapbook Page Design with Michele Gerbrandt is one of the top three books I have bought to assist me with my scrapbooking.

I am impressed with the concepts of layout, design, etc. included in and ease of which I am able to incorporate these principles. This book is for the beginner or for the more advanced. I studied some graphic arts in college and found this book wonderfully precise, pertinent and practical even though some of the principles demonstrated were not new to me. For those new to scrapbooking, the guidelines will help one understand and FIX the "not so right look'n page/s". Included in the book were before and after examples of pages which were "fixed" using the principle being taught. Subtle changes that made a huge difference.

This is the one scrapbooking book I would buy as a gift for a scrapbooking friend.

Hope this is helpful :)
MrsPCmudry

No need to duplicate what's been said in other reviews, but a few observations to add:

First, the opening pages ("Get Inspired by Your Environment") are worth the price of admission alone. Author Gerbrandt reminds us that design is all around us, and the book presents small clusters of objects that reflect good designs. Jewelry, fabrics, nature, even blueprints and office supplies make an appearance here.

Second, the book proceeds by mini-courses: color value ("contrast"), color combinations (including a handy, single-page of highlighted color wheels), graphic layout, "adding finesse" (the role of embellishments and small details), including fonts and textures.

I second s.lejeune's mention of the before and after pages. Some seem to reflect minor changes, at first to my eye not a major improvement -- yet a few moments of study makes it clear why 'after' is better.

In the final analysis, this is a lot of book if you're serious about scrapbooking. There's plenty of inspiration and plenty of basic design sense.

If you didn't go to art school or design school, this is a fantastic book to help the average scrapbooker make extraordinary pages! I used it years ago, and today i'm designing pages and making kits to sell. I cannot tell you how easy this book is to use and understand..highl reccomend.

Teaches you how to balance your pages, the use of colors, etc. Awesome book.