On this page I’ll be talking about how to plan just about any kind of page layout or visual art. I could say it will be all about design theory but then who would want to read it? It’s to help find answers to questions like ‘How do I divide up a page framework in a way that makes my message stronger?” or even “How does the size or location of an image affect the way someone sees the space on that page?”
And with no further delay, here are my views on some of the most basic basics in design;
The Power of One in Design;
This isn’t about ‘the power of one’, as in the power of one person who takes action and sets off a chain of events that ends up changing the world for the better. Though that sure is something I like to believe in, especially on my good days. But the power of one unique element in a design, one object or color or line or shape or form, can be just as striking within it’s own canvas or construction.
Why? Well often because it happens to be what’s there. Draw anything at all on a blank sheet of paper. A dot, a line or a picture of your neighbor. If it’s the only thing there on that picture plane we have to look because that’s all there is to look at. We can’t not look. We’re just not wired that way.
And whether a picture represents a sea of grass with a car parked in the middle, or an endless blue body of water with a speck of a boat in the distance, the car or the boat will be seen as the only thing out there. It works for a splash of red paint on a canvas patterned in white and black and grey too.
Put one different, unique thing in with a bunch of others and the same effect holds true. One black bead in a necklace strung with white beads, makes the black bead the center of attention. Set it up and try not looking at that black one. Bet you can’t do it. One palomino horse in a herd of bay horses would stand out too and not just because she was pretty.
‘So what? Everybody knows that.’ Right. Everybody does. The thing to remember is that you can make them look exactly where you want them to with the power of one.