Is Collage Really Dead?

Many like myself who did not enjoy the collage-inspired trend in scrapbook page design in the past year or so have been busy lately enthusiastically writing the post-mortem on collage and declaring the death of the style. No longer are the scrapbook magazines filled with page after page of monochromatic brown layouts. No longer are layouts so crammed with embellishments that there is not a single inch of “white space” to be seen. No longer are we filling our albums with nothing but antique and heritage themed pages. No longer are stores full of nothing but vintage looking supplies. So hip hip hooray, collage is dead – or is it?

Or did granny collage just get a face lift? Did collage just get a newer, younger, hipper look? I think that is definitely the case. Collage is still around but has transformed into something that is more approachable and more appealing to a wider range of scrapbookers.

Sure the brown and other obvious collage traits are being seen less and less. But what about the less obvious elements of the style? Many of them are actually still around and are evolving into part of the new style that is emerging, albeit a cleaner and simpler style than collage and the post-collage shabby chic styles. So what is it that remains? Remember the days when a single pattern paper was the background and then everything else on a page was solid cardstock? Thanks to the collage trend, we’ve learned how to use and appreciate multiple patterned elements on the same page. Now they are colorful instead of brown, but the underlying idea is still the same. And three-dimensional elements are still all the rage, even though instead of pewter and copper metals we are now using hot pink and other retro colors. Distressing is still being done in many ways, but to brightly colored papers instead of vintage looking ones. Paint and ink are in widespread use but in a rainbow of colors instead of only brown and black. Texture is still considered appealing but just not created the same way it was in collage….and even typewriter typefaces, once loved by collage scrapbookers for their vintage appeal, are continuing to be used in the new cleaner style.

Despite the fact that I was never a big fan of collage and couldn’t create a collage page that looked decent at all, I find myself now adopting many of the above techniques and elements into my cleaner and simpler style and very much liking the results. So I guess despite my hopes, collage really isn’t dead.

But I have to admit I really like it’s face lift.