Visual Fundamentals

A shape is any area a viewer perceives as enclosed and separate from its surroundings, and it is the first thing the eye resolves before detail, color or meaning arrive.

Form is shape with the third dimension added — real or implied — and it is created almost entirely by how light falls across a surface and what shadow it leaves behind.

Line is the most economical element in design: it divides, connects, encloses and directs attention, and it works just as powerfully when it is implied rather than drawn.

Space is the empty area around and between elements, and it is an active design material: it groups, separates, creates emphasis and determines how much effort reading requires.

Color is the least stable element in design: it is produced by the eye rather than the object, it shifts with its surroundings, and it means different things to different people.

Contrast is measurable difference between elements, and it is the mechanism behind almost everything else in visual design: visibility, hierarchy, emphasis and legibility all depend on it.

Scale is relative size, and because size is the first signal of importance the eye registers, deciding how large things are is inseparable from deciding what matters.

Visual hierarchy is the deliberate ranking of elements so a viewer takes them in a chosen order, built from contrast, scale, position, space and grouping working together.

Balance is the distribution of visual weight across a composition, and because viewers feel imbalance as discomfort rather than notice it as an error, it operates almost entirely below conscious attention.

Rhythm is pattern in time or space: the repetition and variation of elements and intervals that sets the pace at which a viewer moves through a design.

Composition is the arrangement of every other visual element into a single working whole, where the relationships between parts matter more than the quality of any individual part.