Star photo collages
A star keeps less of its photo than any other shape here: five points, and most of the cell given to the gaps between them. That decides what can go inside it.
Measured across the bank by rasterising each outline, a star retains about 32 per cent of the area it is given, against 79 for a circle. It is not a small difference of degree, it changes what the shape is for. A star is not a smaller circle; it is a symbol that happens to be filled with a photograph, and treating it as a window is what makes star collages look cheap.
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1. What survives inside a star
A face does not. At medallion size the arms cut through the sides of a head and the middle of the star holds a nose and not much else. Every star collage that looks wrong is a star with a portrait in it.
Texture, colour and pattern survive. A sky, confetti, a jumper, grass, water. Anything where the middle of the frame is representative of the whole.
One small centred subject survives. A candle, a ball, a single figure in the distance.
Anything with an edge that matters does not. Two people, a whole building, a plate of food: the star removes precisely the outsides.
2. What it is for
A star means something before it shows anything, which is unusual among these shapes and is the reason to pick one.
A child's birthday, a school award, a sports season, New Year. Occasions where the symbol is doing more work than the photo inside it.
Not a wedding, not a memorial, not a portfolio. The shape is emphatic and slightly juvenile, which is right for the first list and wrong for the second.
If you want a medallion that carries a face for one of those, a circle is the shape and there is no version of the star that competes.
3. Make one
Pick a collage above and it opens with the star in place. Choose a photo for it on texture rather than on subject: whatever is at the very centre is what will be visible, and the rest is going to the points.
The photographs that carry the collage are the rectangular ones around it, which is true of every medallion and truest of this one.
Questions about Star collages
Why does the photo in my star look cut up?
Because a star keeps about 32 per cent of its cell, the least of any shape here, and what it removes is the outside of the frame. A face loses its sides to the gaps between the points. Put texture, colour or one small centred subject in a star, and put faces in a circle.
What photo suits a star shape?
Anything where the middle of the frame represents the whole: a sky, confetti, grass, water, a jumper, a single candle. Avoid anything whose edges matter - two people, a building, a plate - because those edges are exactly what the shape takes away.
What occasions suit a star collage?
A child's birthday, a school award, a sports season, New Year: occasions where the symbol carries meaning before the photo inside it does. Not a wedding, a memorial or a portfolio, where the shape reads as emphatic and slightly juvenile.
Can I put a portrait in a star?
Not usefully at medallion size. The arms cut through the sides of a head and the centre holds a nose. Every star collage that looks wrong is a star with a portrait in it; use a circle for a face.
