I took this picture of my nephew and his dad for their newborn photoshoot. It was a lifestyle photography session in his home. I placed them close to the window to get as much of the natural light in his face as I could. I really love the contrast that natural light produces indoors. I wanted to create a welcome card so they could distribute it to everyone, such as family and friends, to have a good memory of this special day for the Coles. I also wanted to make sure I included important details such as date, height, and weight. These are things people typically like to ask about newborns. To add a particularly personal touch decided to incorporate a signature. This adds an element of personality to the card.

I started by using Camera Raw to play with the exposure and contrast. Next, I popped the colors a bit using the curves tool and saturation. I used the spot healing brush to clean up some blemishes. After that, I decided to sharpen the image by creating a layer mask and painting the areas I didn't want to adjust black, such as imperfections in the skin. I then used a high pass to sharpen the image.

I left plenty of negative space to help make the card design clean and breathable. This also helps call attention to the photo, which is much darker than the text content. This generates Contrast in the design. I decided to align the content on the right-hand side of the card in the center. This shows the principle of Alignment. For Typography, I combined both serif and sans-serif fonts and two different font families. I grouped content that needed to be read together using the principle of Proximity.

Claudia Shattuck - Image and Card Design

Typography - Baskerville (Welcome home), Galvji (for the other texts)