Composition & Design: Elements of Design

270813 Tues.

As far as design is concerned, there are many different types of elements that we, as a (future) designer can play with :) According to wikipedia, design elements are the BASIC unit of a painting, drawing, design or other visual piece, which include:

1. Line

• Line can be straight or curved, heavy or light, soft or hard, or a mixture of them all.
• Line can show movement, rhythm, textural results and even emotional effects.

2. Shape

• A shape is created when a line crosses itself or intersects with other lines to enclose a space.
• Shape is 2-D, it has height and width, but no depth.
• Geometric shapes: circles, squares, rectangles, triangles.
• Organic shapes: leaves, seashells, flowers.

3. Texture

• Texture is the surface quality of an object.
• Implied texture: 2-D art that is made to look like a certain texture but in fact is just a smooth piece of paper. e.g. A drawing of a tree trunk may look rough but in fact it is just a smooth piece of paper.
• Real texture: The actual texture of an object.

4. Space

• Positive is dark, negative is light.
• The positive space is masked in black in the second photo.
• The negative space is masked in black in the first photo.

5. Time & Motion

Type Me Again Peter Cho, 2000

• Any word or image that moves functions both spatially and temporally.
• E.g. carefully watch water, it's moving, splitting, falling apart and getting back together.

6. Colour

• Description: Hue - movement within colour, Value - colour intials, Chroma - brightness
• Schemes: Primary, secondary, tertiary, monochromatic, complimentary, etc.

7. Typography

Serif vs San serif

Commercial Script

Custom

Square Serif