And since we have a bit of a prejudice against paid for proprietary software in our house it was done entirely through GIMP. I would suggest using many many layers (one for each bit of text) so you can move them, and change sizes etc independently to help with the design.
Also- I'm not sure if this helped, but I started from the bottom. I have read before that if you are trying to replicate something by drawing (like a portrait etc) you should turn the image upside down when you copy it so you can ignore/turn off the "this is a face" part of your brain. Which apparently helps you to focus more on producing a faithful copy than interpreting what you are doing and so getting in your own way. I think it helped to start from the bottom because it is something I would never do and it meant I wasn't in a comfort zone, so I was more creative. Who knows?
Incidentally: these are all place names that DH and I have lived in. Arcadia is the area we lived in when we first shared a flat. I toyed with colouring the words- something like yellow for me alone, blue for hubby and green for both of us- but it just looked a bit contrived. And whilst the print is semi-balanced in monochrome, with three colours it becomes a bit more than my little graphic design skills can deal with :)
Also dear dear husband told me that Irene, in the top right hand corner, looked evil in whatever colour I chose. I didn't want to agree, but the seed was planted....
This is doubly weird since Irene is a quiet little village which is so sweet that you definitely can imagine a horror movie waiting to be set there.
Edit: Here are two of the coloured versions (Made the right choice, eh?)
