Design Concepts: Quick Overview
More Design Vocabulary:
Flash Version/
non
Flash Version
Organize your screens with some simple design concepts to add consistency to your authoring projects.
Balance:
Keep the type of balance consistent throughout your project.
- Symmetrical: the use of identical (or almost identical) shapes on either side of a vertical axis
- Asymmetrical: a felt or intuitive balance that often has a focal point;
balancing the visual weight,
- example: a large shape is balanced by including several small shapes on the other side of the screen
- Radial: objects and lines are organized around a central point creating a circular or spiraling movement
Color:
Keep a consistent color scheme throughout your project:
- Monochromatic: tints and shades of one hue (color)
- Adjacent: hues of a similar nature that lie close to each other on the
color wheel
- such as blue, blue green, and green; or red orange, orange, and yellow orange
- Complementary: colors that are opposite on the color wheel:
- red / green; yellow / purple; orange / blue.
- It is common to let one color dominate and use the other color for an accent or to add emphasis.
- When complements are used in full intensity, they can often create a color vibration
- Triad: three colors equidistant on the color wheel;
- red, yellow, blue; or orange, green, purple
- Warm/Cool: When put side by side, warm colors tend to emerge and cool
colors recede;
- warm colors are red, orange and yellow;
- cool colors are green, blue, purple
- Polychromatic: the use of many colors:
- this color scheme can look colorful and may be appropriate for such festive subjects as the 4th of July.
- however often the picture just appears cluttered and unfocussed
- High Key: the use of light value colors
- Low Key: the use of low value colors
The 3 properties of color
- You can use contrast of color to add emphasis to a center of interest in an image
- Hue: which color is it; its location on the color spectrum
- Value: how dark or light a color appears
- Intensity: how vivid or dull a color appears
Characteristics of a line
- Varying type, length and weight of lines helps avoid a boring and monotonous design
- Measure: length and width
- Type: wavy, dotted, curved, straight, erratic, calligraphic
- Direction: diagonal lines create a feeling of movement horizontal and vertical lines add stability
- Character: the effect of the media: pencil, wash, charcoal texture, color
Shape:
- Vary sizes of shapes to avoid monotony.
- Examine the spacing between shapes (also called negative space) to avoid monotony there also.
Edge:
- Vary the edges of shapes when possible. Include smooth, soft, rough, dithered, etc.
Surface:
- Include the use of pattern or texture illusions to enliven screens and backgrounds.
Other Concepts
- How do you employ these concepts to add unity to a screen: rhythm, repetition, variety, contrast, placement, alignment.
- Does your screen have a center of interest?
- Do you know how to create an emphasis through the use of size, color, location, texture?