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Visual Elements: Repetition Vs Variety

The document discusses six principles for effective visual design: 1. Balance repetition and variety of elements. Too much of either is ineffective. 2. Use dominance through scale and color to draw attention to key elements. 3. Create the illusion of space through placement and scale of elements. 4. Achieve balance through symmetrical or asymmetrical arrangement and implied movement. 5. Give thought to negative space areas without elements as to positive space areas. 6. Strive for economy by including only elements needed and unity with all elements contributing to the overall purpose.

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Hazel H Guerrero
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34 views

Visual Elements: Repetition Vs Variety

The document discusses six principles for effective visual design: 1. Balance repetition and variety of elements. Too much of either is ineffective. 2. Use dominance through scale and color to draw attention to key elements. 3. Create the illusion of space through placement and scale of elements. 4. Achieve balance through symmetrical or asymmetrical arrangement and implied movement. 5. Give thought to negative space areas without elements as to positive space areas. 6. Strive for economy by including only elements needed and unity with all elements contributing to the overall purpose.

Uploaded by

Hazel H Guerrero
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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These are the five elements that you have to work with in a two-dimensional image:

Shapes
Lines

Color

Value
(Light or dark)

Texture

Organizing the elements


The process of designing an image or publication is about how you arrange the elements
you choose inside of a frame or workspace. Here are six principles for effective design:

Design Principles

Visual elements

Repetition vs Variety: First, you have to decide how many elements and how
much of each to use. An image can be as simple as a line drawing or as complicated as a
multi-textured collage.
Variety
Repetition
Too much repetition is boring; too much variety is confusing and chaotic.
Your design needs to find the right balance between these two extremes.
Rhythm
If you do repeat the same elements, doing so
in a rhythmic fashion will create interest.

Dominance: Decide which elements you want to stand out.


Scale and color are two ways to achieve this.

Space: Whether on a computer or on a piece of paper, youre working on a

two-dimensional surface. But you can easily create the illusion of space. Is this what you
want, or do you want your design to stay flat and decorative?
Decorative space

Plastic space

There are three simple ways to create spacial illusion:


Placing shapes in front of other shapes
Changing the scale of some shapes (smaller shapes appear to be farther away)
Placing foreground shapes closer to the bottom of your frame. Our most common point
of view is looking down on objects, which makes closer objects lower in our line of sight
than those farther away.

MTSU JournalismVisual Communication

4 Balance: As you begin the process of arranging your chosen elements in your frame,
you obviously need to avoid putting too many on one side or the other. But the most
obvious way, to put some on one side and some on the other, isnt always the most
exciting way to achieve balance. You can create a more dynamic balance by implying
movement of the more dominant elements, or by strengthening the relationship
between the elements in your design.

Symmetrical balance

Asymmetrical balance

Design Principles

Organizing the elements (continued)

5 Positive/Negative Space: In balancing your design, you need to give as much

thought to areas without objects in them as to the areas that do. These negative areas
carry some visual weight as well.
Negative

Positive
Negative

Negative

element you are using doesnt help your design, take it out. Economy doesnt mean
simplicity, it means being only as complex as you need to be. Some designs need to be
complicated and some dont.

The goal: Unity


By following these organizing principles, you are working toward the real goal of a design,
unity, in which all the elements join together to make a larger whole. Designers often refer
to the concept of Gestalt, which is summed up by the phrase, The whole is greater than
the sum of its parts.
The elements you use and the way you arrange them should all be contributing to the
purpose of the design. Different parts fit together when you create a relationship between
them. There are lots of ways to create a relationship: parts that share the same elements, or
are the same size, or appear to be moving in the same direction. When the different parts
fit together, then they work together, and the design is complete.

MTSU JournalismVisual Communication

6 Economy: Put into your design only what you need to get the job done. If an

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