Objectives

• Learn the formal elements of graphic design• Understand the principles of design• Comprehend visual hierarchy• Learn about scale

Definitions

• A line is an elongated point, considered the path of a moving point.• Shape is the general outline of something; it is a configured or

delineated area on a two-dimensional surface.• The colors we see on the surfaces of objects are perceived and

known as reflected light or reflected color. The colors in screen-based media are known as additive colors (mixtures of light).

• Value is to the level of luminosity of a color.• Texture refers to the actual tactile quality of a surface or a

simulation of that surface quality.• Pattern is a consistent repetition of a single visual unit or element

within a given area.

The Formal Elements of Design

• The formal elements are the building blocks of two-dimensional design. Line Shape Color Texture

Line

• A line is an elongated point, considered the path of a moving point; it also is a mark made by a visualizing tool as it is drawn across a surface.

• Lines can be straight, curving, or angular; they can guide the viewer’s eyes in a direction.

• The basic functions of lines include: Define shapes, edges, forms; create images, letters, and patterns Delineate boundaries and define areas within a composition Assist in visually organizing a composition Assist in creating a line of vision Can establish a linear mode of expression, a linear style

Shape

• The general outline of something is a shape; it is a configured or delineated area on a two-dimensional surface created either partially or entirely by lines or by color, tone, or texture.

• A shape is essentially flat—meaning it is actually two-dimensional and measurable by height and width.

• All shapes may essentially be derived from three basic delineations: the square, the triangle, and the circle. Each of these basic shapes has a corresponding volumetric form or solid: the cube, the pyramid, and the sphere.

Shape

• There are some basic types of shapes, including: geometric organic, biomorphic,

or curvilinear rectilinear curvilinear irregular accidental nonobjective or

nonrepresentational abstract representational

Figure/Ground

• Figure/ground, also called positive and negative space, is a basic principle of visual perception and refers to the relationship of shapes, of figure to ground, on a two-dimensional surface.

• The figure or positive shape is a definite shape; it is immediately discernible as a shape.

• The shapes or areas created between and among figures are known as the ground or negative shapes.

Hope for Peace: Poster© Ronald J. Cala II

Color

• The colors we see on the surfaces of objects in our environment are perceived and known as reflected light or reflected color (also known as subtractive color).

• The colors on a computer screen are light energy—a wavelength—that we can refer to as digital color (also known as additive colors—mixtures of light).

• The element of color can be divided into three categories: Hue is the name of a color—that is, red or green, blue or orange.

A hue also can be perceived as warm or cool in temperature, which refers to whether the color looks hot or cold.

Value refers to the level of luminosity—lightness or darkness— of a color. Shade, tone, and tint are different aspects of value.

Saturation is the brightness or dullness of a color dull blue.

Color

• Additive color system When working with

light, the three primaries are green, red, and blue.

Primaries are also called the additive primaries because, when added together, they create white light.

The color system of white light is called the additive color system.

Color

• The subtractive color model is built on the subtractive primary colors. The subtractive primary

colors in pigment are yellow, red, and blue.

In printing, yellow, magenta, and cyan are the colors of the process inks used for process color reproduction.

A fourth color, black, is added to increase contrast.

Color

• When working with light in screen-based media, the three primaries are red, green, and blue (RGB).

• Designers should have a basic awareness of color print production, ink mixtures, and screen “safe” colors—and their problems.

• Basic color knowledge should include awareness of the printing primaries of CMYK, the process of layering dots of ink to produce color, and the Pantone™ color system of ink selection.

• The Pantone color system is a standardized color matching set of inks used in printing processes.

• Designers should be aware that colors on the web can be unstable; therefore a palette of 256 “web-safe” colors was standardized.

Pantone Matching System: Swatch

Value

• Value refers to the level of luminosity—lightness or darkness—of a color, such as light blue or dark red.

• To adjust the value of a hue, two neutral colors are employed: pure black and white.

• Black is the darkest value and white is the lightest.

• Value contrast is most useful for purposes of differentiating shapes. The value contrast most clearly differentiates the figure from the ground.

• Hue contrasts alone have less impact and therefore may not be as effective for differentiating between the figure and ground images or between elements of a single composition

Saturation

• Saturation refers to the brightness or dullness of a color or hue.• At its highest level of intensity, a hue is said to be purely

saturated.• Mixed with black, white, or especially gray, the fully saturated

hue becomes dull in various degrees. The neutral colors dull the intensity or saturation because

they dilute the hue. A color mixed with gray is called a tone or a reduction of the fully saturated hue.

• A saturated color will call attention to itself when placed alongside duller tones.

• In a composition, a saturated hue has an advantage of being noticed first when surrounded by hues of lower saturation.

Texture

• In the visual arts, there are two categories of texture: tactile and visual. Tactile textures (also called

actual textures) have actual tactile quality and can be physically touched and felt.

Visual textures are those created by hand, scanned from actual textures, or photographed; they are illusions of real textures.

Tactile Textures (Top)Visual Textures (Bottom)

Pattern

• Pattern is a consistent repetition of a single visual unit or element within a given area. In all cases, there must be systematic repetition with obvious directional movement.

• Pattern structures rely on the configuration of three basic building blocks: dots, lines, and grids.

• Any two intersecting units yield a pattern grid.

Open Your Heart – Give Blood: Poster Series © Cedomir Kostovic

Principles of Design

• To compose, you utilize basic design principles.• The basic principles are absolutely interdependent.

Balance is about stability and creating equilibrium. Balance helps stabilize a composition.

Creating emphasis through organizing a visual hierarchy improves communication.

Designing a whole composition in which graphic elements have a discernible visual relationship relies on the principle of unity.

Rhythm is a visual pulse and flow from one graphic element to another.

Format

• The format is the defined perimeter as well as the field it encloses— the outer edges or boundaries of a design.

• In addition, designers often use the term format to describe the type of application—that is, a poster, a CD cover, and so on.

• Format examples: CD cover (square shape) Single-page magazine ad (vertical rectangular shape) Two-page spread (horizontal rectangular shape) There are different size mobile screens and computer

screens. A tablet has a specific rectangular aspect ratio, screen image width–height ratio.

• No matter what shape or type of format, each component of the composition must form a significant relationship to the format’s boundaries.

Balance

• Balance is an equal distribution of visual weight.

• A balanced composition can be symmetric or asymmetric. Symmetry is the

arrangement of all identical or similar visual elements so that they are evenly distributed on either side of an imaginary vertical axis, like a mirror image.

When you arrange dissimilar or unequal elements of equal weight on the page, it is called asymmetry.

New York Times Style Magazine: Cover© New York Times Magazines

(Example of asymmetric composition)

Visual Hierarchy: Emphasis

To guide the viewer, the designer uses visual hierarchy, the arrangement of all graphic elements according to emphasis.

Emphasis is directly related to establishing a focal point— the part of a design that is most emphasized or accentuated.

Position, size, shape, direction, hue, value, saturation, and texture of a graphic element all contribute to establishing a focal point.

Once past the establishment of a focal point, a designer must further guide the viewer.

“Inspiration: Where Does It Come From?”: ArticleJanet Froelich /© New York Times Magazines

Emphasis

• There are several means to achieve emphasis: Isolation Placement Scale Contrast Direction and

pointers Diagrammatic

structures Nested structures Stair structures

Rhythm

• A strong and consistent repetition, a pattern of elements can set up a rhythm, similar to a beat in music, which causes the viewer’s eyes to move around the page.

• Rhythm—a sequence of visual elements at prescribed intervals—across multiple-page applications and motion graphics, is critical to developing a coherent visual flow from one page to another.

• Equally important is incorporating an element of variance to punctuate, accent, and create visual interest.

• Many factors can contribute to establishing rhythm—color, texture, figure and ground relationships, emphasis, and balance.

Unity

• There are many ways to achieve unity where all the graphic elements in a design are so interrelated that they form a greater whole— all the graphic elements look as though they belong together.

• Viewers best understand and remember a composition that is unified. This relies on gestalt, German for “form,” which places

an emphasis on the perception of forms as organized wholes, primarily concerned with how the mind attempts to impose order on the world, to unify and order perceptions.

The mind attempts to create order, make connections, and to seek a whole by grouping—perceiving visual units by location, orientation, likeness, shape, and color.

Perceptual Organization

• The mind attempts to create order, make connections, and seek a whole by grouping— perceiving visual units by location, orientation, likeness, shape, and color.

• Methods of perceptual organization: Similarity Proximity Continuity Closure Common fate Continuing line

Correspondence

• When you repeat an element such as color, value, shape, texture, or parallel directions or establish a style, you establish a visual connection or correspondence among the elements.

• In a series (related yet independent solutions) each composition is unified on its own through its compositional structure, alignment, color, typography, and visualization. Each design is also unified as a series through corresponding

(shared) characteristics and through a consistent template (consistent positioning of elements).

“The Neversink Library”: Book Cover Series© Christopher King

Scale

• In a design, scale is the size of a graphic element seen in relation to other graphic elements within the composition.

• Scale is based on proportional relationships between and among forms.

• Manipulating scale can lend visual variety to a composition.• Scale adds contrast and dynamism among shapes and forms.• Manipulation of scale can create the illusion of three-

dimensional space.

“Our Allies Need Eggs, Your Farm can Help”: Poster© Herbert Bayer

Structure and Unity

• Various structural devices can aid in unifying a static page or multiple-page applications.

• Modular systems, grids, and mathematical devices and alignment can help establish unity.

• Viewers will perceive a greater sense of unity in a composition when they see or sense visual connections through the alignment of elements, objects, or edges.

• Alignment is the positioning of visual elements relative to one another so that their edges or axes line up. A graphic structure, such as the grid, used to organize the

placement of visual elements incorporates guides to set up alignment.

A Modular Grid

Summary

• Design principles underpin every effective visual solution. Without a complete understanding of two-dimensional design, a designer creates primitively rather than with design intelligence.

• The formal elements of two-dimensional design are line, shape, color, and texture.

• A line is an elongated point, considered the path of a moving point.

• The general outline of something is a shape; it is a configured or delineated area on a two-dimensional surface.

• Figure/ground, also called positive and negative space, is a basic principle of visual perception and refers to the relationship of shapes, of figure to ground, on a two-dimensional surface.

Summary

• The figure or positive shape is a definite shape; it is immediately discernible as a shape. The shapes or areas created between and among figures are known as the ground or negative shapes.

• The colors we see on the surfaces of objects in our environment are perceived and known as reflected light or reflected color.

• The digital colors seen in screen-based media are also known as additive colors—mixtures of light.

• Value refers to the level of luminosity—lightness or darkness—of a color.

• The actual tactile quality of a surface or the simulation or representation of such a surface quality is a texture.

Summary

• Pattern is a consistent repetition of a single visual unit or element within a given area.

• The basic principles of design are absolutely interdependent.

• The format is the defined perimeter as well as the field it encloses—the outer edges or boundaries of a design.

• Balance is stability or equilibrium created by an even distribution of visual weight on each side of a central axis as well as by an even distribution of weight among all the elements of the composition.

• Symmetry is a mirroring of equivalent elements, an equal distribution of visual weights, on either side of a central axis.

Summary

• Asymmetry is an equal distribution of visual weights achieved through weight and counterweight, by balancing one element with the weight of a counterpointing element, without mirroring elements on either side of a central axis.

• To guide the viewer, the designer uses visual hierarchy, the arrangement of all graphic elements according to emphasis.

• Emphasis is the arrangement of visual elements according to importance, stressing some elements over others, making some superordinate (dominant) elements and subordinating other elements.

• In graphic design, a strong and consistent repetition pattern of elements can set up a rhythm, similar to a beat in music, which causes the viewer’s eyes to move around the page.

Summary

• Repetition occurs when you repeat one or a few visual elements a number times or with great or total consistency.

• Variation is established by a break or modification in the pattern or by changing elements, such as the color, size, shape, spacing, position, and visual weight.

• Unity occurs when all the graphic elements in a design are so interrelated that they form a greater whole.

• Alignment is the positioning of visual elements relative to one another so that their edges or axes line up.

• In a design, scale is the size of an element or form seen in relation to other elements or forms within the format.

• Proportion is the comparative size relationships of parts to one another and to the whole.