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as you're starting to think very first
assignment
vocabulary regarding
elements and principles of design
a lot of times
verbage is tossed around a lot of times and I want to make sure that you're aware of
what each is. Ive made
some drawings and I hope this helps explain it better than makes things confusing
Here is the first slide
nice and low tech.
So elements vs principles
elements are the building blocks of design
so shape
line
color and value
type and texture
all make up elements now Ive also seen direction
noted in there but to me direction seems
seems more like a perception of what those elements are doing
I don't know if I agree with
that
anyway in principles there is all kinds
of different principals
balance
repetition
contrasts
harmony
dominance and flow in harmony kinda go together
so your building blocks over on the left side
are used with
principles on the right to
make good design or bad design
Let's see I have another thing here for you
some principles have been divvied out into an area called gestalt principals
Gestalt principals have to do with psychology and with the way people perceive things
there was some study going on around the turn of the century to the twentieth century
and couple of psychologists wanted to know if there were some common ways that people always
perceived
certain events
this is a Gestalt psychology,
how people perceive.
and ahh...
There's a couple of different Gestalt concepts that I want you to think about just as other design principals
figure/ground
similarity
proximity
closure
and continuation.
I've noticed other principles that could be attached to these
so again when you hear design principles
they're not necessarily just
all-encompassing
a lot of times you'll hear different terms meaning the same thing.
But,
I think that
we can start with these.
So let me show you examples of figure ground
it's the easiest to understand.
You have a little guy here
and
typically figure
is interpreted if you put a line
on a blank piece of paper.
That line is interpreted to be
the
thing that you're wanting to concentrate on.
The background is just where it lives. It's the environment
it's on. In the west we consider figure to be more important
than ground. As we start to get into
different types of
of styles in visual communication
we'll see that figure/ground thing tossed around and messed with a bit.
It can be very interesting.
One of the most basic areas of figure/ground is type. Type has to have a strong figure/ground relationship
in order to work well.
Next one is similarity.
We say this is the Sesame Street principle.
You're more likely to say those are two circles and triangle,
than those are just three shapes.
We tend to categorize things
by
their shape
and we'll separate those out.
Proximity
is kind of like similarity.
If I show you this
I'm guessing that you probably would look at that and say that's
two sets of circles
rather than
just four circles.
You immediately identify space
as an element
and
how space is broken up is influencing the design.
Proximity is really important. You want to have things that are intellectually similar
be close together, and things that are intellectually distant or unrelated to be far apart.
Lots of designs are screwed up that way, so once you learn proximity it's an easy
way
to improve your design.
Closure. I'm betting that if you look at this
you're more likely to say- that looks like a circle with a small gap in it
than
a really curvy line.
Our minds
close up familiar objects for us.
This can be great. I always say it's the difference between spoon feeding a design
and making
the viewer
an active participant in design.
So, consider using closure of if you have a familiar object-
chop out part of it
and most times people will close up the difference
and it can make design much more interesting
and unexpected. Finally,
continuation, which is really having
to do with direction.
On the left here... and I got this off the internet so this
is a good example I stole. On the left- our mind makes up two "v's." One is upside down.
However, if we put them right next to each other
on the right
our eye is more likely to draw
two diagonal lines, and see it as two diagonal lines rather than two "v's."
The strong
direction of those two lines trumps the
the original "v" shape.
So, continuation is the strength and
ability of our mind
on to span distances, to jump across distances. It's very similar to closure except
closure you are closing up familiar shapes
and continuation your eye is jumping from one point in the design to the
next based off of a strong direction.
Anyway, that's just the beginning of a little discussion on principles of design, but as you
start your project think about those things. As you look at symbols and icons
think about what principles are being employed,
what elements are being used.
Many times texture is the completely unused element. So anyway
I hope this has been helpful.