12. Make a couple page sketches to get motivated!
13. Start thinking of a title for the scrapbook.
14. If you’re working with others, decide how you’re going to divide the work and make sure everyone’s on the same page.
Layouts:
15. Don’t be afraid to have one photo fill a full page or take up a lot of space.
16. Think about how you want the readers’ eyes to move over the page and format the text and pictures to match.
17. Balance out positive and negative space. In general, I tried to make sure that if one page was super busy, then the next had more breathing room, and vice versa. Likewise, if you have a busy background, give photos and illustrations more breathing room and try to keep them simple.
18. On that note, try to give photos a border or frame so they’re distinct from the background.
19. Be aware of what general color schemes you’re going to use per page.
20. Think about how you’re going to ensure readers spend time on every page rather than skimming over it.
21. Get creative with the background!
22. Make sure you have a table of contents and page numbers throughout your scrapbook.
Construction (Traditional):
23. Think about what materials you’re going to need and plan accordingly.
24. Build the body of the scrapbook first, and decide what size the pages are going to be before you start working on the inside.
25. Print out all the photos from a certain event as you work on that page.
26. Spend a lot of time on your cover and make it as visually striking as you can.
27. If you’re artistically inclined, you can draw a bunch of fun design elements to really feature your theme throughout. If you’re not artistically inclined or don’t want to draw that much, you can ask some friends to draw specific things to help you out. Just make sure you have lots of original art!
28. Try to have one artistic element and one design element per page. An artistic element is a cool drawing, while a design element could just be something unique about your page layout or design.
29. Think about what you want to incorporate that makes your scrapbook unique. For me, this was a ton of interactive elements, like flaps, accordion folds, pockets, etc.
30. Mentally prepare to cut out a lot of intricate shapes. Out of the entire process, this part was honestly the worst, but it’s necessary. I even got my family to help cut out the characters, but it’s still so tedious.
Construction (Digital):
31. Figure out how you want to upload your original art- I drew digitally on Procreate, but one of the historians I worked with on our local scrapbook drew on paper, and then scanned and uploaded her art to Canva. Whatever works for you!
32. Figure out what you’re going to use to make pages- For our local scrapbook, we used Canva, exported it as a pdf, and then uploaded to Issuu.
33. Don’t be afraid to look for inspiration or pose references, but sure all your art is original.
34. Take advantage of the fact that you can insert videos, gifs and links.
35. Make sure your theme is present throughout the scrapbook.
36. Like with the traditional scrapbook, make sure the cover catches the reader’s attention.
Publishing:
37. Don’t try to please everyone- just make sure you’re proud of what you’ve made! It doesn’t matter what others think as long as you are happy with the product. That being said, don’t be overly critical of yourself, especially if you’re a perfectionist. As long as you’ve done your best, everything will be fine!
38. If you made a traditional scrapbook, try to make a digital copy of it so that it’s accessible by all and will stay with your JCL chapter, serving as a reference for future historians.
39. Before I submitted to NJCL, I had the board look over my video submission to make sure that there weren’t any glaringly obvious errors. If you’re confident that your scrapbook is ready to go, then there’s no need for this, but I thought a few extra pairs of eyes were useful.
40. Share your work with other historians! If this guide was helpful to you, I would love to see your work. Send me an email at historian@virginiajcl.org!
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