Tying it all together: how to create unity instead of chaos?

Throughout the past few weeks as I’ve played around with my collage layout, I’ve come to realize that unity is the most difficult element for me to achieve in my design. In the early stages of design projects, I always tend to include too much text, too much information, or too many pictorial elements. “How can I make it all fit?” is the first question; the next is “How can I make it ‘go together’?” Brainstorming and coming up with ideas isn’t the hard part—it’s choosing which idea to carry out and tying my design elements together.

Creating unity in my poster design becomes even more challenging when I consider what materials to include: we must choose at least three non-paper materials to incorporate into our designs. Materials such as fabric, beads, plastic, canvas, or other textured substances can bring a three-dimensional effect to two-dimensional artwork, but if the artist doesn’t consider how to tie in these elements with the overall design scheme, they can look cheesy and forced.

I’ve refined my layout and spent hours editing my photos to create a cohesive picture. I’ve just bought some fabric, with which I want to accentuate the shawls and scarves that the women in my dominant photo are wearing. I think I’ll scan my fabric and take it into Photoshop to play around with making different textures and colors, building on top of the natural texture and folds of the fabric. How are you incorporating new materials into your collage? How can these materials enhance, rather than detract from, the photo-edited elements and overall concept of the poster?