Principles of DesignThe glue that pulls everything

together and helps guide their use.

Gestalt• The overall impression.• It conveys a total visual

message and makes an impression because of the individual experiences, past and present, that you, the viewer, bring to the as or design you’re looking at.

• The most successful designs represent a union of type and image that stirs a personal response and leaves you with a clear, strong, and often instantaneous message.

Balance• A state of stability within the design.

Symmetrical

Radial

Asymmetrical

Movement• In a 2D space, your eyes constantly move and are

called to something.• It is the designer’s role to direct your visual

attention to an image or to type.

Repetition• Repeated lines,

shapes, or colors can make a composition seem to jump or swirl.

Rhythm• Repeated lines and shapes can be used to create

patterns that suggest rhythm and tempo. • Visual rhythm can be regular and predictable, flowing,

alternating, progressive (changing), or irregular and unexpected.

Visual Path• Careful placement

of lines, shapes or forms, and colors can make the eyes move along a visual path or around a page.

Emphasis• The degree to which

one element, or a combination of elements, creates more attention than anything else in a composition.

Unity

• Unity refers to a sense that everything in a piece of work belongs there and makes a piece whole.

• May include repeated shapes or textures that form visual patterns.

• Seems to send a consistent message.

Variety• May use many different

colors, textures, shapes, or lines.

These components may work together harmoniously, as in a unified design, or they may create an energetic, lively, or even chaotic effect, if that’s the designer’s intention.

Pattern• Created by repeating

basic elements (motifs), such as dots, lines, symbols, or shapes

Proportion• The size relationships

between the parts of an object.

Contrast

• The extreme difference between two things.