Creative Inspiration

Curation Weekly: Minimalist Collage

Our design curator’s weekly pick of inspiring graphic design, re-created with Over.

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June 2, 2020

In order to make sure Over is always stocked up with the most on-trend graphics, fonts, and images, our content team spends much of their time exploring the wide world of graphic design and illustration. They also love challenging themselves to see what Over is truly capable of, as a creative tool.


This week it’s been expressions of ‘Minimalist Collage’ that have caught the team’s eye. Storme, our Design Curator at Over, gravitated towards two particular artists she now lists amongst her favs, and was eager to try and get the look in Over:

"It makes for a unique, customized aesthetic. Minimal collage uses considered image choices, clever color pairings and playful abstract accents to turn your design into a surrealist playground."

Office Hours - ‘Hearty White’

Storme really loves this unique GIF portrait of musician and broadcaster Hearty White by Office Hours. It was the starting point for exploring some ideas with minimalist collage – a simple cut out element, combined with ‘doodle’ graphics. It’s a collision of two trends we noted in our Trends Toolkit earlier this year: collage and childlike expression.

Here’s how you can get the look in Over:

  1. Select your image, and mask the section you want to ‘cut out’ (in this case, the head and neck)
  2. Make it monochrome with one of our photo filters (if it isn’t already a black & white image)
  3. Choose a rectangle shape to cover your frame, pick the color you want, and use ‘Lighten’ in Blend mode. Then add a different color rectangle over this, and use ‘Darken’ in Blend mode. This will give you the ‘duotone’ look.
  4. Add a few doodle graphics to your design. In this case we used the ‘Minimal Lines and Shapes’ graphic pack.

TIP: To make a GIF version, export 2 or 3 variations of your design with slightly different doodles. Then use an online GIF maker to animate them.


The second source of inspiration in this style is a piece by Tyler Spangler (a regular on our weekly curation moodboards tbh). Tyler uses a more structured approach, replicating the arm multiple times to create a psychedelic pattern: minimalist, yet very bold and evocative at the same time. There’s a retro flavor with the use of collage, but the color palette and design precision make it very contemporary.

Tyler Spangler - 'Everyone Needing Time’

Storme used this design as inspiration to make her own work of art in Over, combining an arm, the moon, and a plant in a minimalist collage with a similarly trippy aesthetic.


To create the illusion of a moon being sliced in half (see below):

  1. Mask out the top section of the moon image.
  2. Add a circle to the design, and make it the color of your choice (orange works here because it’s complementary to blue tones)
  3. Transform this shape to a slender oval, and place it over the moon image, covering the masked edge.

Here’s another example – see if you can replicate the steps in Over:

Virtually anything is achievable with Over – from professional branding design, to psychedelic art experiments. Start a free trial today and unlock your creativity.

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