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Day 1)
Please check out this web page for the definitions of the principles of design.

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Design can sometimes seem pretty straight forward; some nice visuals and text to dress up an idea right? Fortunately for your reputation and discussion at parties there is actually a lot of complex depth at play when it comes to successful designing, and it all starts with the principles of design.

1 Balance

LEFT: The Balance is shifted to the Left. RIGHT: The balance is even.

Balance, like physics, determines how weighted a design is to a certain area. If your content stands out in one particular area of your space, the balance (and attention) will be shifted to that area. An unbalanced design can create a dynamic feeling, but can also cause people to miss things as the entire page is harder to absorb at once.

2 Repetition

LEFT: The eye is lead quickly from one corner to the other. RIGHT: Though using the same shapes, more time is needed to absorb the new information within each one.

Repetition can be a great tool for leading the eye across a page, but without variation it can quickly become monotonous to look at. Consider how fast you want people to be exposed to your content. The more repetition you use, they quicker your audience's brain will register your design, but the quicker it will get bored! Try using some slight variations within your repetition to keep interest.

3 Contrast

The dark shapes contrast the light background. The round-edged circle contrasts the sharp-edged triangle. The small triangle contrasts the large circles. The two clear shapes contrast the blurred shape.

Contrast occurs when two opposites are placed near each other. This is an especially useful element in design because it is what most attracts attention and causes elements to stand out. This "pop factor" can be the difference between your design leaping off the page and it being flat and uninteresting. It's a well known fact that in pretty much every case, a design needs at least some element of contrast in order to be interesting.

4 Dominance

LEFT: Dominance of shape avoids monotony. RIGHT: Dominance of size creates dynamism.

Dominance is the treatment of one element over another. This principle catches your audience's brain by surprise and causes them to process the information in a more detailed way than just viewing two of the same elements. Usually the dominant area of the design will be the area in which the most important information is, or the focal point that your eye is first drawn to. This is why on magazines the cover is dominated by a large photo designed to catch your eye, with smaller text containing the information overlayed in small font once you've been reeled in. This concept leads us to our last principle...

5 Hierarchy

LEFT: Hierarchy in order of size. RIGHT: Hierarchy from Darkest to lightest.

Hierarchy refers to the order in which elements are viewed or "order of importance". This is the crowning principle of design and which all other principles work towards supporting. Simply put, hierarchy determines exactly what path the eye will be taken along in a design. If you've got a simple message like an album cover, your hierarchy won't have to work very hard as it will simply need to grab attention with an image, then supply the artist name once your eye has been drawn. Something like a newspaper, however, has to work harder as there is so much varied information on the one page. This is why headlines are in bold capital letters, followed by a large image, followed by the small body text. Less important articles are pushed to the side or underneath with smaller headings so your eye is drawn to them last.

These principles can sometimes get a tad abstract on their own, so let's take a look at a practical example:

This is a Facebook event image designed for a band night. We can see that it is has balance, for although the flower on the far left is larger than the other elements, the text in the middle is slanted in order to lend more weight to the right. This image has made use of repetition not only for the fact that there are two of the same images, but of the individual pyramid shapes within the images. Note that these pyramids are colored differently so as to avoid monotony.

The images and the text contrast from the lightly colored background, and therefore pop-out in the space. The flower on the left is larger and creates dynamic dominance over the smaller flower, and means that in order of hierarchy our eye is drawn from the larger flower on the left to the smaller flower on the right, stopping to view the headlining band at the top and in the largest font, down the supporting bands, and finally finishing on the details of the night.

The truth is there are a lot more than five principles of design, but these ones are some of the most useful when it comes to creating. How you apply these principles in your own work will be a key factor in how successful your design is.

Have you got any other principles you'd like to share? Add them to the comments below!

Create amazing designs with Canva:

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Design can sometimes seem pretty straight forward; some nice visuals and text to dress up an idea right? Fortunately for your reputation and discussion at parties there is actually a lot of complex depth at play when it comes to successful designing, and it all starts with the principles of design.

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Day 1 (cont'd)
Youtube video about the different types of visual balance symmetry, asymmetry and

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Day 1 (cont'd)
Using creativity, design a drawing using geometric and abstract shapes. Divide a 12x18 into thirds. In each space draw your design symmetrical, asymmetrical and radial.

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Day 2)
Please go to this website and look at different pieces of art. Observe how the artist used repetition in his/her design and the movement the repetition creates. * In your sketchbook, create a 1" x 6" pattern using repetition.

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Design in Art: Repetition, Pattern and Rhythm

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From over 40,000 educational tutorials at Sophia.org

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Day 2 (cont'd)
Explaining Contrast

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Day 2 (Cont'd)
Watch this short video on contrast.

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A brief explanation of the principle of contrast used with value.

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Day 2 Homework
Please review the terms you have learned so far this week.

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Balance, Repetition and Contrast Flashcards | Quizlet

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Start studying Balance, Repetition and Contrast. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.

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Day 3
Please read this explanation about dominant features in artwork. It explains how and why we use emphasis in art.

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When you first come across a new design where does your eye go? What's the first thing you see on the page? Where in the design is your attention drawn? The answer to all three questions is one of dominance.

Dominance through emphasis of one or more particular elements creates a focal point in your design. It's where most people will instinctively go when first looking at your work. Dominance will create an entry point on the page from which you can lead the viewer to other parts of the page.

What is Dominance?

dominant ( adj) - commanding, controlling, or prevailing over all others

dominance ( n) - the fact or state of being dominant

Given the definitions above it shouldn't be too hard to understand dominance as a design component. When you create dominance in your work you are creating elements that command attention and prevail over other elements.

Every design should have a primary area of interest or focal point that serves as a way into the design. From the primary dominant element, design flow can be achieved by creating elements with secondary and tertiary dominance.

Dominance relies on contrast, since without contrast everything would be the same. You might even think of dominance as contrast in extreme, though it doesn't have to be.

Consider 2 squares of different sizes. The larger square will likely dominate (even if it's only slightly larger) and the greater the difference in size between the 2 squares the more the larger will dominate the smaller.

In the image on the left the larger square dominates the smaller square, though not to the extent that the larger square in the image to the right dominates its smaller sibling.

Dominance is the varying degree of emphasis in your design elements. You can create 3 levels of dominance in your work.

1. Dominant: The element given the most visual weight, the element of primary emphasis. The dominant element will advance into the foreground in your composition.

2. Sub-Dominant: The element(s) of secondary emphasis that will become the middle ground in your composition.

3. Subordinate: The elements with tertiary emphasis, given the least visual weight. Subordinate elements will recede into the background of your composition.

It becomes difficult to create a 4th level of dominance. As human beings we can easily distinguish most and least, but things in between quickly move into a gray area where they are seen as equal in dominance.

Why is Dominance Important?

As I mentioned above dominance helps create an area of interest, a focal point or starting point in your design. The dominant element on your page should be the element you want people to see first. Perhaps it's your logo or the title of the page or whatever else you want people to notice first.

Dominance creates a visual hierarchy in your design. A hierarchy is by default a series of different levels of dominance.

A lack of dominance between elements leads to competition between them. If there are two red circles of equal size in your design, which should I look at first? Different people will choose different circles and some will bounce back and forth between both. Had one circle clearly been dominant your viewer knows to look at it before the other circle.

Without a dominant element on the page your readers must work to find their own entry point into your design. That's not as easy as it seems and the least amount of work may be moving on to another design on another page on another site. Remember, "Don't make me think." Instead make it easy to find a way into your design.

By creating a dominant element in your work you reveal what's most important in your design and show people were to look first. From there you can create a subdominant element to guide your viewer where to look next.

How to Create Dominance in Your Design

As a general rule the elements in your design with the most visual weight will be the most dominant. However that may not always be the case.

At times the dominant element may be the element that most dominates its immediate surroundings. An object surrounded by whitespace dominates its immediate environment.

In the image above your eye probably falls first on the circle in the center. It's hardly the largest shape in the image and doesn't carry the most visual weight. However because it's completely surrounded by whitespace it dominates its local environment. The shapes with more visual weight tend to blend together here and none dominates its immediate space.

In general though, more visual weight = more dominance in the element

You can add more visual weight to elements through

Size - As you would expect larger elements carry more weight

Color - It's not fully understood why, but some colors are perceived as weighing more than others. Red seems to be heaviest while yellow seems to be lightest.

Density - Packing more elements into a given space, gives more weight to that space.

Value - A darker object will have more weight than a lighter object.

Whitespace - Positive space weighs more than negative space or whitespace.

Keep in mind that visual weight is a combination of all of the above. Your biggest element on the page may also have the lightest color and value and still recede into the background.

Be careful with overdoing dominance. While you want to create an element that dominates your design to serve as the focal point you still want the rest of your design to be seen. Be careful not to make an element so dominant that everything else in the design gets lost. You want your design to be balanced overall.

You can create dominance in elements that don't have the most visual weight. Objects placed in the center are often seen as a focal point as long as their is enough emphasis given to them. When many other elements all lead your eye to one particular element, that element can become the dominant focal point.

On the web every element is a box. Like it or not when you develop a page you are creating boxes and while there are ways to make things appear less rectangular visually, it's common to have most of your elements in one box or another. As a result circles gain increased dominance since they contrast with the straight edges of rectangles.

And again consider the image above. The small circle dominates the surrounding whitespace. It may be too small to dominate on its own, but it dominates its immediate environment.

Examples of Dominance in Web Design

The image in the upper left of the WebDesigner.ro site is clearly the dominant element on the page. It pulls you into the design and from there your eye moves right to the navigation and the content

The dominant element on the Ribbons for Red home page is the emblem in the upper left. Notice how red is used to create sub-dominant elements to pull you through the page. Notice too what those sub-dominant elements are and think about what the goals for this page might be.

Denise Chandler's site uses dominance to create a focal point around the welcome message on the page. You can't see it in the image here, but if you click through to the site the insects are animated further pulling your eye to the welcome message.

Dominance is created through the large black font. It's inviting to read and immediately leads you into the navigation, which repeats the black as a background color.

The black background is used throughout the page behind other elements to pull your eye to them and blue is used to provide contrast and help other items on the page stand out. The page does a great job of both pulling you into the design and then pulling you through the design.

Area 17's site also uses heavy black text to pull you into the design. In this case the dominant element is the A / again in the upper left. Notice how the welcome message in the header also uses black text which pulls you to it and then to short bio about the company to the right.

You then encounter a light red diagonal (easier to see on the live site than in this image) which guides your eye down and to the left to selected projects from the company's portfolio.

Summary

Dominance is a fairly easy concept to grasp. Most of us can look at any composition and immediately identify the dominant element or elements. What's important is to be conscious of how each of your elements dominates or is subordinate to its immediate surroundings and the design as a whole.

Dominance is contrast, emphasis, and relative visual weights. You must have contrast to have dominance. Identical items can't dominate each other. In general the more visual weight an element has the more it will dominate, but look for ways in which elements of lesser visual weight can still dominate.

Be careful not to create so much dominance in one element that the rest of your design becomes too subordinate. The more one element dominates another the more subordinate and seemingly less important that second element becomes.

Use dominance to create an entry point into your design as well as a hierarchy to help guide the eye from one part of your design to the next. The more important an element is in your hierarchy, the more dominance it should exhibit. Try to create 3 levels of dominance in your designs and look for ways to further direct your viewers from most to least dominant.

Again dominance is easy to grasp, so easy and obvious that we may forget to notice it. As you look at new designs and artistic compositions pay attention to where you look first, second, last. Pay attention to what you instinctively see as dominant, sub-dominant, and subordinate and ask yourself why they appear that way.

The 7 Components of Design

Download a free sample from my book, Design Fundamentals.

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Dominance: Creating Focal Points In Your Design - Vanseo Design

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When you first come across a new design where does your eye go? What's the first thing you see on the page? Where in the design is your attention drawn? The answer to all three questions is one of dominance. Dominance through emphasis of one or more particular elements creates a focal point in your ...

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Day 4
Please click on the link for the Prezi. You will find your assignment in the Prezi.

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Heirarchy Egyptian Artwork Visual information can be arranged in order of importance. Drawing the viewer's attention to the most important information or focal point. Draw a compostion which incorporates Critical Thinking Answer The Egyptians used heirarchal scale in their artwork in order to show significance of the person being portrayed.

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Part 1

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Test: Balance, Repetition and Contrast | Quizlet

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Quizlet is a lightning fast way to learn vocabulary.

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Day 3 (cont'd)
*Using your sketchbook, create a pointillism drawing incorporating dominance/emphasis.

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Day 4 (Cont'd)
Please review the remaining terms you have learned this week.

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The security system for this website has been triggered. Completing the challenge below proves you are a human and gives you temporary access.

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Part 2