Easily Generate Visuals For Your Brand Through The Use Of Collages

Have you ever wasted time searching for the non-existent, royalty-free image that will perfectly convey the idea behind your design? Most of us designers have attempted this at one point or another, to then eventually render our actions futile. If this is a process you would rather not repeat in the future, collage art may be the relatively simple solution that you need to try.

Collage art has many benefits that will save you time, and also give your brand an extra opportunity to coordinate style and color. While Adobe Photoshop is the first choice for software, may other programs will work as long as you have an easy way to crop and layer your images. Acquiring images is now the easiest part of the process with the assistance of royalty-free image sources such as Unsplash. If you have the time and resources you can also use your own photos. Image quality is not of the utmost importance since it can easily be disguised through the artistic collage process.

In order to clearly demonstrate how this process works, we are going to use an example. Let’s say that you are asked to design a platform for a dog walking business. You are given the colors, fonts, and all other stylistic properties concerning the brand. While this may be enough insight to create a functional product, it may not be enough to compete with the other established brands out there. One easy way to captivate more users is to make the app interesting by incorporating some imagery.

For the splash screen of our proposed product, we would like to show a woman walking a number of dogs at once, with emphasis on variety through dog breeds and sizes. Now it is safe to assume that you are not going to find a great picture of this fantastical scenario, so the best bet is to create your very own.

To start, create a list of all the images needed to create a cohesive picture. In this case, we will need dog photos, accompanied by leashes, and a woman. An example list is as follows:

1. Dogs [Chihuahua, Great Dane, Lab, Yorkie, Beagle, and German Shepherd]
2. Leashes [Blue, Pink, Green]
3. Woman with outstretched arms

Once you have gathered all the necessary images you will want to drop them into Photoshop, or the software of your choice. Crop out each individual item and place it to the side to be positioned later. Once you have all your images, you will need to find a background. An ideal background will be the secondary color of the brand you are designing for. If this is too jarring, a simple black or white will usually work well.

Since this is a collage keep in mind that the shapes and sizes of each picture do not have to retain realistic properties. Many features in collage art are embellished and dramatized to make characters and actions more animated.

Use the collage method as a means of creating images, but do not rely on it to be the style of your work. You will need to include a signature style relative to your brand. This can be done through the angles of your images, the borders you use, or the filters applied to each of your collage pieces.

Imitation is said to be the best form of flattery, so don’t be afraid to use other people’s work for inspiration. This will provide you with many creative ideas, and keep you from trying to reinvent the wheel.