Building a Focal Point

Building a Focal Point

Clean and Simple card design requires one and only one focal point. A clear place that your eye is immediately drawn to.

Look at your card and imagine it in three equal parts, your focal point should be placed in the first or third part or between 1 & 2 or 2 & 3 as shown in the pictures below. Your focal point should never be placed the the center of that 2nd panel, it is said to be unappealing to the eye and does not draw your eye in as a focal point should.

Once you place your focal point, you have more freedom design-wise. Here you can do your embellishing, as much or as little as you’d like. Everything should be built around your focal point, adding to it and not drawing the eye away from it.

Let’s look at my sample…

I have placed my focal point between the 1st & 2nd panel. My butterfly serves as my focal point. The contrast of the Powder Pink cardstock against the Early Espresso and Whisper White really makes it pop.

Now, I kept my focal point simple, but you could do so much here …embossing, patterned paper, a row of rhinestones, a few small flowers…as long as you keep the rest of the card clean (white space!) you can go crazy on your focal point! You can even stamp your sentiment on the card base leaving you more room to add interest to your focal point, like I have.

The card above uses one of my fall-to-layouts! I use this design often, moving my focal point to different areas. Here are a few sketches to help you get started.

Your sentiment can be placed on the strip, just below the circle or in the circle.