Everything designers need to know about digital collage

We all have that one pivotal moment that introduced us to an art style we keep coming back to. Remember Angela Anaconda? This is how many design lovers were first exposed to digital collage art — through their TV screens.

In the past, paper-cutout and mixed media compositions were mostly found in museums and magazines. However, in recent years, both their visibility and our awareness of them have significantly expanded.

Be it on Instagram, Pinterest, Behance, news outlets, or movie posters, digital collages are everywhere now. This growing trend is an opportunity for marketing teams to implement an exciting art style into their designs.

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A brief history of collage art

For my younger self, collage art started with Angela Anaconda. But for the world, it dates back a few centuries. 

It's a popular belief that Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque pioneered collage art in 1912. However, the history of collage art is a bit more nuanced.

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art debunked this myth with the Cut and Paste exhibition in 2019. I won’t bore you with a history lesson, but let’s say that cutting and pasting paper onto other mediums dates back to the Japanese in the 1100s. 

Picasso’s and Braque’s contributions did have some merit. Their creations inspired different avant-garde movements of the 20th century. Some artists worth highlighting include Hannah Höch and George Grosz from the Dada movement. Surrealists like Andre Breton and Joan Miró. Pop artists like David Hockney and Richard Hamilton. Feminist artists like Miriam Schapiro and Faith Ringgold. And contemporary collage and mixed media artists like Wangechi Mutu, María Berrío, and Chitra Ganesh. 

Traditional collage vs digital collage

Traditional collage has always been a scavenger hunt. You have to source your materials from magazines, newspapers, scraps of fabric, and little trinkets that could fit into your composition. 

Digital collage moves the scavenger hunt away from the analog and into your screen. 

The concept of both collage forms is the same: combining an eclectic sum of elements to create a new art piece. The creative process is the same: collecting, cutting, pasting, and layering materials. The only difference is the medium. 

The different uses of digital collage

The creation of digital collages is not reserved for a select few artists. On the contrary, its use has been widely adopted across industries and mediums. 

Digital collage in websites and media

Open any digital media website. The Guardian, The New Yorker. Or blogs like Girlboss and The Cut. What do you see? 

Pictures against colorful backgrounds mixed with illustrations. Layered cutouts meshed into one square. Digital collages are as common as plain photos or illustrations for editorial banners. 

Digital collage in commercials and ads

Think of bold, eye-catching advertisements you have seen lately. Would you believe me if I said that most of them were some form of digital collage?

A picture against a colored background with some text layered on top.

Superimposing two images to give off a surrealist effect.  

Creating an unlikely composition that looks realistic, but you would have never gotten it on camera. 

Packing up different images and illustrations to express various moods and possibilities. 

Most ads are just one rectangle. If you want to grab people’s attention, you have to pack a punch. Digital collage enables you to blend elements and textures to convey a complex narrative in a single visual.  

Digital collage as vision or mood boards

The most common forms of collage you have probably come across are vision and mood boards. Promoted by self-help gurus and TikTok It girls alike, vision boards are a popular medium for setting goals and staying motivated. 

Mood boards communicate the aesthetic, tone, and style of something. They can be used as the planning basis for a creative project or as an inspiration board for fashion or interior design. More recently, they have become popular on Instagram and TikTok to describe the “vibe” of books and movies. 

Why should you leverage digital collage in your marketing?

If your marketing team wants to create striking, memorable visuals that will stand out, digital collage is the way to go.

Here are four reasons why you should start leveraging digital collage as part of your marketing strategy:

• Create click-worthy article banners. Summarizing an entire article into one single image is no mean feat. How do you convey the message in a way that catches the reader's attention? Forget about using AI-generated banners or a simple non-descript stock image. Try reimagining how to use company-branded vector graphics and illustrations in a digital collage. And if your corporate identity is flexible enough, see how much you can play with the collage medium to give readers a clear sense of the article while encouraging them to click and read more.
• Save money producing collages. Can you not afford a new product photoshoot? Cut out a simple picture of the product you want to promote and layer it with an interesting background, some vector illustrations, or a collection of related images you sourced online. Collages are not only affordable but also extremely flexible forms of design. 
• Set the tone and style for your product. Who said only trendy Gen Z creators can use mood boards? Build a mood board around your product. Include images that show the kind of people, places, and activities where your product fits in. Which colors relate to it? Are there any quotes matching the tone you want for your product?
• Build an aesthetic around your brand. Not only can you create a vibe for a particular product, but you can also build a whole aesthetic around your brand. This could resonate with younger audiences — Gen Z and Gen Alpha — who are used to perceiving the world through a lens of "aesthetics" thanks to TikTok. So keep up with the times and produce the kind of content people actually want to engage with.

How to make a digital collage

Now that you know where collages come from and why they should become integral to your marketing, let's talk about collage creation. What steps should you take to build a digital collage?

Brainstorm and come up with a concept

Before getting started, you need to draft some ideas. Collaging is more time consuming than sourcing or taking a single picture. 

To avoid getting lost in the process, make notes of the message you want to convey, the kinds of images and copy you want to include, the color palette you want to use, what the background should look like, and the illustration style you want to use. You could even go ahead and create a mood board.

Gather your materials

Now that you know the composition you want to create, it's time to hunt for the materials. Instead of buying scissors, glue, and magazines, you'll scour the Internet for pictures, illustrations, textures, quotes — anything and everything that could fit your concept. Save it all in a folder for easy access later on.

If you’re unsure where to find images that you can use free of legal repercussions, here’s a handy resource list: 

• Pexels & Unsplash: Free stock, royalty-free images.
• Vintage Stock Photos: Free resource for antique pictures.
• The Met—Open Access: A digital gallery of The Met's collections with pictures in the public domain. 
• Wikimedia Commons: A collection of freely usable, user-generated photos. 
• Library of Congress: Digital collections of newspapers and journals that are free to use.
• Shutterstock & Adobe Stock: Paid libraries of stock content (pictures, vectors, illustrations, etc.) 

Pick out your design tool

You know what you're creating, and you have a folder on your laptop with all the materials neatly organized. Now, it's time to find the tool that will allow you to bring your collage to life.

The software or tool you choose will depend on the type of collage you want to make. And your design skills. Here are some options:

• Linearity Curve: If you want user-friendly and customizable software with advanced layering and vector editing features and seamless access to image libraries.
• Pixlr: If you're interested in a free tool to create simple photo collages. 
• Canva: If you're looking for a drag-and-drop tool with readily available templates and graphics.
• Adobe Photoshop: If you're looking for customizable software with advanced editing features. 
• Procreate: If you want total creative freedom and control and want to create everything from scratch. 

Set your background

Sign in to your tool of choice. Open a new document, set a size (depending on the collage's use case), and add a background. 

The backdrop of your composition is the first thing you must add to the file. It's non-negotiable. There's nothing more frustrating than layering all your images and not finding a matching background. Set yourself up for success by adding the background first.

You can either import an image, select a solid color, or draft a custom design using the different drawing tools available in your software.

Start cutting your images 

Select all the images you want to include in your design layout. Then, cut out the elements within the images you intend to use one by one. 

You could... 

• Remove the background of an image. 
• Crop out the parts you don’t want. 
• Resize the image.
• Use a pen tool or shape builder to draw a shape. Isolate the part of the image you want to keep within the shape. Apply a mask to it and hide the rest of the image.  

Layer, layer, layer

Now, it's time to arrange your design. First, add each cutout as an individual layer to the file.  

Once you have all your layers in place, drag and position each image wherever you want it to go. You could double some elements. Add shadows. Make some images transparent. Use other layers as an overlay. Play around with your composition. 

Add icons, shapes, and illustrations

You can add more dynamic elements by creating unique shapes. Or browsing an icon library and inserting the ones that match the style you’re going for. 

If you’re an illustrator, or have access to one within your team, you could also create your own graphics to add a more personalized touch to your collage. 

Include some text

Once you have set the image in place and added the shapes and icons, you can add the copy you had planned for. 

Select the text tool. Choose a font that matches your brand and the collage's concept. Type away.

Final touches: Colorizing and texturizing

You’re almost ready. But can you make your collage even more visually interesting? Is there any texture you could add to make it pop? A retro filter? A paper feel? Or maybe you can play with the color. You could desaturate some elements while adjusting the colors in others. Get creative.

Et voilà! Time to export

And that's it. You have fully developed your initial concept. Or have you? Take a good look at your collage. Have you conveyed the feeling you intended? Is the narrative clear? If you're happy with the job, all that's left is to export it.

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Tips and tricks for creating unique collages

Stay inspired

There's only so much your little brain can conceive. You need to replenish the well to come up with new ideas constantly. To stay inspired and keep the collage spark alive, I recommend you...

• Follow collage artists on Instagram or Cara. 
• Read art or collage books. Like The Age of Collage. Or books about the creative process — What it is by Lynda Barry is a great choice.
• Follow collage forums on Reddit or relevant Pinterest boards. 
• Visit museums. If you can’t, visit museum websites. Most big museums have their entire collections cataloged online. You could even look up which of those images are public domain pictures and integrate them into your collages. Some museums with great collage collections — or related art movements — include: 
  • MoMa
  • Tate
  • Centre Pompidou
  • Art Institute Chicago
  • Guggenheim Museum 
  • National Art Gallery
  • LACMA

Keep a repository of images and ideas

Ideas come in waves. So be sure to dump them somewhere. When you have to build a new collage for the next ad campaign, you'll thank yourself. 

The same goes for the images. You browse the Internet every day. Whenever you find something that could be useful for a design, save it in your files. 

Experiment with different styles and compositions

The goal of creating a digital collage is to keep things visually exciting. The beauty of digital collage is how flexible and expansive it is, so take advantage of this.

Since you're leveraging the great resources that are museums, pay attention to different art styles. What can you learn from pop art or surrealism? Can you apply some of their techniques to your design work?

Also, think about the rules of composition. The rule of thirds. Having a focal point. Using leading lines. Rules of scale and hierarchy. Using complementary elements. Repetition. How can you incorporate and play around with these rules in your digital collage designs?

Use grids and guides for balanced designs

Remember that you can use grids if you need help balancing symmetry and asymmetry in your compositions. Grids can help you structure your layout. They make it easier to define your focal points in the design. They can also help you remember things like the rule of thirds. 

You could also use guides as reference points to align text and position the different collage elements. And do not forget the margins. 

Add animation to your collage

Make your collage pop by animating it. You can add movement by animating individual layers. Making text appear or disappear. Making images slide in or fade out. Rotating shapes or icons. Set keyframes to control the starting and ending points of each animation. 

You can also create a loop animation in which some collage elements are constantly moving. Like shooting stars, or the wheels of a car. Remember to export the animation as a GIF to keep the loop going when you post it online.

A quick note on the ethics of digital collage

Copyright and Collage Art: Intellectual Property Rights in Regards to Collage Art 

There's much discussion about whether digital collage is an ethical art form. The answer tends to be "it depends." 

For commercial purposes, such as marketing, you must be wary of how you practice collage art. So, to avoid any potential lawsuits:

• Use images that you own. Pictures you have taken. Illustrations you have created.
• Use images that are in the public domain, that are released under Creative Commons licenses, or that are copyright and royalty-free. 
• Check the age of the artwork if you're unsure whether you can use an image. Usually, they are free to use seventy years after the author's death. 
• Ask for permission from an artist or photographer if you want to use an image that isn't copyright-free.
• Source your references. If you want to be on the safer side, then always cite your sources and give credit where credit is due.

Build your next collage with Linearity

Collage art has a rich history, with many styles and use cases to explore. The easiest way to create a unique collage is by using Linearity’s free tool.

Linearity Curve offers powerful vector editing tools, making it simple to create illustrations, shapes, and text. If you’re into templates, you can check out Linearity’s template gallery. Swap out photos for personalized images and adjust the background to match your style.

If you need some copyright free pictures, browse through Unsplash, which is seamlessly integrated into the app. And if you want to take your creations to the next level, animate them with Linearity Move. 

Ready to spice up your marketing with digital collage?