Three Powerful Ways to Use Collage

There’s nothing new about collage – it’s an artistic technique that’s been around for centuries and became very popular and common in the 20^th century. To the untrained eye, collage seems very easy: Take some photos, throw them in the air, and wherever they land glue them down and ta-da! You made a collage!

In reality, collage is a subtle art. It starts with having tightly-focussed photo collage ideas that organise and add meaning to your chosen photographs. While you can, of course, simply toss photos down and call it finished, the impact of your collage will be much greater if you start with a plan and follow through on it. Here are three powerful approaches that will help you create collages that really have impact.

The Geometric Approach

It’s a fallacy to think that all collages have to be ‘messy’ and chaotic-looking. While this is a fine approach (which we’ll touch on below) it tends to be the assumption because when you’re in primary school and you make a collage, it’s what you do.

In reality, many great photo collage ideas are actually very neat and geometric, with the photos arranged in a square or rectangular manner, with no or only slight overlap. In these collages, the key is to size each photo appropriately – the focal point of the collage should be the largest photo, and all photos in the collage should be square or rectangular.

The Never-Ending Collage

Collage lends itself in one very powerful way to wall art: You can continuously add to it. Start with a central photo at a relatively large scale (say, a wedding photo). Then, as time goes on, begin to layer smaller photos around the edges of the central image (say, babies being born, school photos, holiday shots, graduations – you get the idea). Every year, a new strata of memories are added, overlapping but never completely obscuring the central image. It’s an amazing concept that celebrates your family – or possibly your business, your career, or anything else you want to track over time.

The Wall Art Collage

Collage doesn’t have to be a cut-and-paste project, either – it doesn’t have to be a bunch of printed photos pasted down. It can be framed photos, canvas prints, or any other pieces of wall art arranged as a gallery feature – except not necessarily in a clean, gallery pattern. In fact, using frameless prints you can create a collage on your wall with an amazing three-dimensional aspect, as you attach new pieces in layers on top of older pieces.

However you approach it, collage is almost guaranteed to be a powerful and attractive piece of decoration in your home. The key is to have fun with it and not get bogged down in rules. Collage is all about expressing creativity and letting your subconscious take the reins.

If your collage ideas include some canvas prints, click here and we’d be happy to contribute to your project!