Wednesday, 5 June 2013

Design Principles and Elements

Design principles are rules we have to follow in order to design anything whereas design elements are the fundamentals in helping us to create and make a design.

Some examples of the principles in designing are balance, perspective, harmony, unity and variety.
- Balance gives a sense of equilibrium to a design work. It can be classified into formal balance whereby it focuses more on arrangement and informal balance where it keeps the attention focused on its visual message instead of the arrangement. There are three main types of balance which are the horizontal balance, vertical balance and radial balance.
- Perspective gives a mental view and it is how our brain interpret the way we see things. It adds realism to the visual images and it can be achieved through the use of the size of objects, overlapping objects and the sharpness of objects.
- Harmony helps to keep a visual image together and complement parts of it together It can be achieve through repetition and rhythm. Harmony can create feelings with the help of colours, shapes and contrasting elements.
- Unity presents oneness to create a meaning in a visual image. With it, images will be more organized and understandable. It can be achieve through common shapes, patterns, background and the use of space.
- Variety provides contrast to harmony and unity. It consist of differences to enhance on and another. However, too much variety may lead to confusion and too little will lead to boredom.

Design elements consist of point, line, shape, texture and color and it is the basic units in creating a visual image.
- A point gives focus and draws attention of a visual image. Many consistent aligned points will draw more attention when they are closely together.
- Lines can be straight as in vertically or horizontally or it can also be curved in any direction. It can also direct people’s attention as it can show movement, rhythm, textural and emotional effects.
- Shape in 3 dimensional form is called a form. Shapes are created when a line encloses an area and it can consist of complex and simple shapes.
- Texture gives an object a surface that can be felt or seen. Rough, smooth, spiky, soft are examples of textures.
- Color is a spectrum of light and it consists of primary colors (red, yellow, blue), secondary colors (orange, green, purple) and tertiary colors which are the mixture of the 3 primary colours. Each color has its own function and meaning and it gives images value, feel, intensity, shades, temperature etc.

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