puzzle-style layout
This page layout is all about putting pieces side by side to make a cohesive whole. It can be done over an entire spread (an open-faced notebook with both pages being “puzzled”) or on a single page with the other side utilizing a different design template.
This template can be a good option when you:
want to include shorter sections of text that may or may not be related and don’t fill an entire layout
have two or more bits of art that you would like on the same page
Puzzle layout pages are the bread and butter of my commonplace books. Looking back through my books, slightly less than half of the pages tend to be composed of puzzle layouts.
I often want to include text that only takes a handful of lines and doesn’t require a full page. Similarly, a lot of the art I include does not fill an entire page. To some extent, I find the arranging of a “puzzle layout” page its own kind of cathartic design exercise and just really enjoy putting these pages together from a design perspective.
putting a puzzle together
When you put a puzzle together, you need several pieces that all work and fit side by side to make a balanced and whole “picture.”
Creating a puzzle template works much the same way, but you get to decide what puzzle pieces go together.
So what are the puzzle pieces?
I think of them as five distinct categories:
Text (in your typical handwriting style and size)
Text (in the form of a title or stylized, and possibly larger than usual size)
Art
Background
Fill-in pieces (stamps or small bits of art that fill in empty spaces)
video
In this video, we will look through several “puzzle style” pages in my commonplace books and talk about the different components that make up the pages and how I think through
video
In this video, I walk you through the process of creating a puzzle-style layout.