1. Principles of Visual Design

2. What design principles have you heard of?

3. Key design principles
Balance - equilibrium of visual weight within a composition (symmetrical / asymmetrical - tension)

4. Key design principles
Rhythm - repetition of elements, often with defined intervals (flowing - movement, progressive - sequence, regular - similar)

5. Key design principles
Proportion - relationship in scale between one element and another (visual weight and depth)

6. Key design principles
Dominance - visual weight of element / space, focus (dominant - foreground, sub-dominant mid-ground, subordinate - background)

7. Key design principles
Unity - relationship between the individual parts and the whole (variety, wholeness)

8. Key design principles
Others: space, hierarchy, colour

9. What design principles can you see?

10. Key design principles: Gestalt
Theory of perception (how the brain interprets what we see / unified whole / German psychologists 1920’s)

11. Key design principles: Gestalt
Closure – we fill in missing information to achieve closure

12. Key design principles: Gestalt
Continuance - once you begin looking in one direction, you will continue to do so (perspective, directional lines)

13. Key design principles: Gestalt
Similarity - similar elements are seen as a group (dissimilar = focus)

14. Key design principles: Gestalt
Proximity - elements close together are perceived as a group

15. Key design principles: Gestalt
Alignment - elements that line up are seen as a group

16. Key design principles: Gestalt
Alignment - elements that line up are seen as a group

17. Key design principles: Visual Tricks

18. Key design principles: Photography
Rule of Thirds (focus off centre / 9 segments) Framing - use objects to frame image
Cropping - reducing visual clutter
Balancing Elements Leading Lines Symmetry and Patterns Depth / Perspective
© 2007 Russ Burden,

19. Key design principles: Colour
Design tip - 3 colour design Primary colour - main colour of the page / theme tone Secondary colour - close to the primary colour Highlight colour - emphasize certain parts of the page / contrast (complimentary or split-complimentary)
Font colour - white, black or contrasting colour

20. Key design principles: Colour
Colour Wheel - useful for selecting colours
Analog Colours - either side of any given colour / harmonious (secondary colour)
Complementary Colours - directly opposite (contrast)
Split Complementary Colours - the analog colours of the complementary colour
Triad Colours - equidistant on the colour wheel / colourful yet balanced
In most colour schemes you might add saturation, tint and shade to the selected colours.

21. Key design principles: Metaphor
Describing something by reference to something else (shared quality)
Visual metaphor - connects unrelated content
Question: what metaphors have you seen used?

22. Key design principles: Text
Text can be an important part of your design scheme
Alice Litscher, 2009,