The elements of design are the building blocks of design that work together to form all of the objects around us. These include line, shape or form, value, color, texture and space. Principles of design refer to how these elements are used and include scale and proportion, repetition and variety, balance, emphasis and harmony or unity. Both elements and principles of design provide a framework for creation.
Learning how to identify, describe, and utilize the Elements and Principles of Design will enhance our ability to create meaningful compositions, while also expanding our vocabulary for sharing design ideas with our colleagues and collaborators.
We’ll start with exploration of the Elements of Design.
These Elements are the individual building blocks of design, their use and how they work with and against each other are a key consideration of every design or work of art.
If you spend any time online searching for the Elements of Design you’ll find a number of different lists, all using variations of terminology to describe the same tools. It’s not that any given term is better or worse than another, it’s more that these tools can be viewed through narrow or expansive definitions.
Today we’ll use the terms:
Line, Shape or Form, Value, Color, Texture and Space
Line is defined as a mark that connects two points
Shape is any line that encloses a space.
Form follows the same principle as shape, but is used to describe works that are 3 dimensional, not 2 dimensional.
Value is the relative lightness or darkness of a surface or object.
Color refers to the color or colors present on a surface or object and how they relate to each other.
Texture describes how the surface of any object might look or how you might imagine it would feel.
Space refers to the areas in and around objects
The Elements of Design are like words in a sentence; they are used in combination to accomplish the principles of design. Similar to the elements – these principles can go by a lot of different names that all describe similar effects.
The principles of design we’ll be defining are:
Scale & Proportion, Repetition & Variety, Balance, Emphasis, and Harmony or Unity.
Scale and Proportion describe the overall size of a composition and the relationship of one object’s size to another within that composition.
Repetition is the use of the same line or object repeatedly in the same composition, while Variety can take the same repetition but change the scale, color, value or texture for added interest.
Balance looks at how the visual weight of objects is distributed.
Emphasis is a strategy to draw the viewer’s attention to a specific aspect of a composition, helping the viewer focus.
Harmony describes how all of the visual elements are working together, Harmony is sometimes called Unity because it can give a composition a sense of cohesion or completion.