Monday, December 15, 2014

Design Principles: Visual Weight And Direction

Every element on a web page exerts a visual force that attracts the eye of the viewer. The greater the force, the more the eye is attracted. These forces also appear to act on other elements, imparting a visual direction to their potential movement and suggesting where you should look next.
Design Principles: Visual Weight And Direction
We refer to this force as visual weight and to the perceived direction of visual forces as visual direction. Both are important concepts to understand if you want to create hierarchy, flow, rhythm and balance in your composition.

Design Principles: Connecting And Separating Elements Through Contrast And Similarity

Similarity and contrast, connection and separation, grouped and ungrouped are all ways to describe the varying sameness and difference between elements. Based on the information they carry, we’ll want some elements to look similar, to indicate that they are related in some way. We’ll also want to show that some elements are different and belong to different groups.
Design Principles: Connecting And Separating Elements Through Contrast And Similarity
Key to showing both is the visual characteristics of elements and their relationships. If two elements are related in some way, then they should show similar visual characteristics. If the elements are different, then they should look different.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/09/22/design-principles-connecting-and-separating-elements-through-contrast-and-similarity/