New backgrounds and design elements for CAM, inspired by Templates

Working with a wonderful designer, Ally Hood, and collaborating together, we brought some fabulous new imagery to CAM - from her work with Templates. We know that you love backgrounds, borders and other design elements, so I am happy to have recently published a whole new batch of them! Check them out and let us know what you think!

I asked Ally to write something about how she came up with the designs and also how to implement them using Office programs. So, in her own words....

I have been creating templates for Office Online for several years and I am always exploring new ways to really push the limits of what Office applications can do. With the release of Office 2007, came great new features. This inspired me to create more complex art and really take advantage of the cool new features!

I created backgrounds and other coordinating clip art to be used (and reused) specifically in templates, for different Office applications; primarily Word, PowerPoint and Publisher. I ended up creating a lot of art and it’s used in a lot of templates on the site. However, rather than keep it hidden in templates, the Office Online Clip Art and Media site manager, Natalie, and I, teamed up to publish the art and provide it to our customers, as free downloads from CAM.

The great thing about these backgrounds is that you can insert them into your favorite application, crop them, re-color them, layer them, rotate them and make a really great document, with your own personal spin on it.

One of my most recent templates is the Fourth of July photo album. By using four of the new backgrounds, I was able to create a fun template to compile family photos in.

You can use these same backgrounds or even use different backgrounds and make Fourth of July greeting cards or party invitations:

This same layout, with different, theme-ready, backgrounds can make anything from a baby photo album to graduation photo album.

These backgrounds can be used for so much more than just photo albums. If you want to see more of what you can do with these backgrounds; including invitations, stationary, name cards and more, check out the Templates site!

I hope you enjoy working with this art, as much as I did creating it. If you end up creating some really great documents, and want to share them with the world, publish those documents, as community templates, on the Templates site!