When I found this pic, I loved it. It sparked a good idea and I ran with it. But after the story I came to a design problem. It looked like I would have to cut out a LOT of it to make it work in a cap. And with all the light and dark areas (not to mention the 'snow', it would be difficult to lay the text directly over the background. I was about ready to give up on the photo and try to find another that would work when I recalled some of my favorite caps designed similar to this. I didn't have to completely cover the background to let the text work over it. I just needed to add that slightly opaque block that would add enough contrast for the text, and at the same time allow the background image to remain visible.
I like the idea, but it offers up its own problems. First is that I now have to work within the confines of the original image. I can't just make the cap taller or wider to fit the text i wrote. With this long of a story, I would generally start the text out on one side of the image, and have it flow further below the image. That way the cap would be in a more vertical format. But I can't just make more runway appear below this model. And I think the effect would look really bad if I had some of the story over the photo, and some over a plain background.
I hemmed and hawed for a long while about this problem. I did spend some time trying to find another image to use, and a lot of time trying to crop the photo in such away that would let it sit over a background like the majority of my caps.
In the end I just accepted that this cap would be to long for most people to view without scrolling side to side (funny... Dee and I are talking about this very subject now on her blog). Even with the larger formats I use today, this is far to wide to fit on a screen, especially in a web browser. But I didn't want to sacrifice the story, or the image and that left me with what I present to you here.
Funny you mention this, because I had a similar issue with a caption I made for Jillisa. I had a lot of story but the source picture was small. I had to use some ideas from your design favorites to overcome it and it worked out fine.
ReplyDeleteStory vs. Picture is often a problem I run into: Do I have enough pictures to effectively tell a story along with the text I've written. Every so often I have the issue of wondering if I have enough text for the pictures I have!
I hear ya on the story vs picture. I can't count the times I find a great single picture that whispers a great story to me. But by the end of writing I have 3 pages of story and only the one image. I hate that. Hate it Hate it Hate it!
ReplyDeleteI don't often have to many pictures. I find it fairly easy to throw out certain pictures and then just beef up that part of the story.