When it comes to designing or creating with different photos, collages give us many options. But, within them, a vintage collage is a way to age something modern and make it pass as more luxurious and elegant. But do you know how to make a vintage collage?
Now, we are going to talk to you about collage, emphasizing vintage collage. We will give you several ideas to make one and also programs and applications with which you can make them, whether you have experience in graphic design and photography, or you only want it as something at the user and personal level.
What is a collage
First of all, you should know exactly what we are referring to by a collage. This can be defined as a creative composition that is made through varied images, whether they are photographs or images that you take from the Internet. It can also be achieved through painting, using elements from various works that give rise to a new joint composition.
Sometimes a collage is not just a combination of images, something that many confuse. And is that collage is actually the use of different materials to build a new image with them. For example, imagine you have a magazine and cut out little squares. With them you fill in an image and it will be made up of magazine pieces but arranged in such a way that they create a drawing in itself. That's really what collage is all about.
And a vintage collage?
In the case of a vintage collage, we would be talking about a creative composition but with certain characteristics, such as using images that look old, whether of landscapes or images or objects that are considered vintage. These would be used to create a composition where these elements were present, along with others, creating a unique image.
Typically, vintage collages use a base in cream or heavily blurred pastel tones to give that old-fashioned, classic look. In addition, it does not overload, and the textures and modes that give a touch of old are used a lot.
Now, it can also be done by mixing the modern with the old, for example modern images with a classic background.
Ideas for making a vintage collage
If you have already been curious about vintage collage, here we are going to give you some ideas to achieve it. In fact, we are going to go from less difficulty to more.
Vintage collage for kids
If you have children at home and you want to have a fun time with them, you can suggest that you create a vintage collage together. For this you will need magazine scraps in pastel shades or very soft colors (or ocher), glue, a silhouette and patience.
As for the silhouette, one of the most vintage that you can get on the Internet is that of a woman. You can print it out and ask the children to glue pieces of the magazine (better that they are small) inside the silhouette. That way, when they finish, if they look at it from a distance, they will see the silhouette of the woman and, as they get closer, they will notice the pieces of paper that they have pasted.
You can do the same with dog templates or other images that are not too complicated.
Vintage collage with paint
We now move on to making a vintage collage through photographs, but also paint. And what we propose is that you use old photos but, also, give it an artistic touch by painting over the photographs, as if you wanted to integrate them into the set of the composition that you are creating.
To make it look better, we recommend that, before starting, you give it a couple of layers of white glue, letting it dry between one layer and another. You can then take old papers, photographs, etc. to make your composition, and then apply a new coat of white glue. This way everything will be protected.
Then With acrylic paint, watercolor or pencils you can paint on them giving them a different touch, or mimic the whole as if they were telling a story to each other.
Vintage portrait collage
This composition is very similar to the first one that we have recommended with children, but in reality it has a little more difficulty because you need create the eyes through the papers you use to form the face.
Therefore, you need papers that can draw the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, hair ... Everything does not have to be very defined, unless you want to focus attention on certain parts, such as the eyes or the mouth.
We recommend that, before gluing everything, do a test to see how it would look and then leave it permanently. So you will not go wrong when building it.
Programs and apps to make a vintage collage
If you don't want to do it manually, that is, having to spend an afternoon or even several days personally building the vintage collage, we suggest some programs and apps that will help you with the task. Thus, you will only need the images you want on your PC or on your tablet or mobile and a program or application to obtain the result (in the second case in a matter of seconds).
Our recommendations are as follows:
Unfold
This app is one of the most used to create collage because it has many decorative options and pre-made templates that help you, especially if you are a newcomer and do not have much idea of how to do them.
It is free, although there is a paid version where you can find stickers, fonts and other features that will catch your eye.
piccollag to
It is one of the applications most focused on giving your images a vintage touch. What's more, It is free and you will have backgrounds, texts, images, stickers or you can even paint on the images or add animations. Everything so that a perfect image remains.
It's free, and it's available for Android and iOS, but it also has a pro version with more features and options.
Retro Collage Photo Editor
Available on iOS, what this app does is provide you retro and vintage filters that give a different touch to your images, in addition to being able to combine several of them to achieve a curious result.
Photoshop
The truth is that in terms of programs, any image editor would serve us as you are going to create something almost from scratch and, thanks to the filters that the programs have, you can give it that vintage collage look in a matter of seconds.
Then you can add text or other images to highlight what you want.