Environmental design is a field that touches upon a variety of different kinds of graphic design, including photography, illustration, painting, printmaking, video and the Web. The key to success within this field is being able to identify the different kinds of graphic design elements that work best with each other. Ultimately, though, these artists are focused on providing their audience with a good experience. They connect people to certain locations because a location s visual experience can be created if it is easy to navigate, interesting and informative.
Common Elements
In the world of graphic design, there are a variety of elements that can be added to existing work. Some elements focus on shapes and objects, while other elements focus on colours and tones. However, the most common element used by graphic designers is composition. This is because most pieces of artwork, whether they be posters or advertisements or website pages or ads, use composition to tell a story through its images. Some elements can stand alone as standalone pieces, while other elements are incorporated into a larger work by being used in conjunction with other elements. These larger pieces would then be called components.
Of all the different elements found in web design and graphic design, one of the most important elements is the layout. A layout is a basis of what a piece of artwork looks like. Therefore, understanding the different elements of the layout is extremely important. There are four basic elements of layout, colour, line and shape. Understanding how each of these elements works together to form a finished product helps create an aesthetically pleasing and visually appealing layout.
Colour and Lines
Colour is the most basic of graphic design elements. Designers use colour to express their artistic intent in two ways. One way is through the saturation of colours in a design, which can be called saturation. Another way is through the contrast of opposing colours. Most designers will blend certain colours to create complementary designs that evoke feelings of other emotions.
Lines are used to marking boundaries, position graphic objects and sometimes to suggest movement. The shape is used to separate things or make shapes. An example of this is the use of a circle or a square to separate images of a child playing or adults at play. Line elements are also commonly used to show scale, like a line drawing of a train. Understanding how these elements interact to create designs is the key to becoming an advanced designer.
Repetition and Contrast
The repetition of certain elements is essential for designing appealing layouts. For example, a repeating image like a heart is an eye-catching graphic design element that many people will smile at. However, repeated images may seem boring and repetitive when placed in certain areas or arranged in certain positions. By arranging the elements in different ways, the layout becomes more interesting and unique.
Contrast is another important key to successful design. Contrast is the difference between two or more objects that creates an imbalance that makes the viewer’s eyes go towards the contrasting element, rather than the main subject or idea. A common example of this is the use of black and white, a contrast that suggests total darkness, but with the white being the brighter tone of the image. This creates an attention-grabbing graphic element that brings out the contrast and draws the eye towards it.
These are just a few of the many elements that are part of creating a graphic design, each having their purpose and role in the effective visual hierarchy. A graphic designer needs to be very familiar with these different elements and how they work to make design work. The visual hierarchy in design helps to guide the designer towards making a good layout. By learning the various elements, and knowing how they relate to the overall layout, a graphic designer can make a layout that not only looks good but is also easy on the eye.