Crap.

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Contrast

Contrast has always been a hard concept for me to grasp. I’ve heard about complementary colours and such, but contrast can be found all over—not just in colours! However, the image below has helped me understand what colours complement one another. Take a look at it! 

Wonder who chose the colours for Christmas, cause they happen to be complementary colours! Green & red however, aren’t solely associated with christmas. They happen to be very common colours for many other things. For example in this image below 

This picture shows red and green—Two completely opposite colours. It shows a good contrast. If these were green and yellow, they would be too similar and wouldn’t create the same effect that the green and red does. If they’re not completely different, they probably shouldn’t go together. If you were going to describe contrast in another way you could say oxymoron. Opposites attract. Horizontal lines love vertical lines. Small type attaches to large type. It sounds simple but it’s quite tricky

________________________________________________Repetition

When some aspect of a design is repeated throughout the page

I believe that this picture does a good job at adding effect with repetition. When someone looks at this picture they do not simply see a person under a tree but instead they see a person under only one of many trees. By having numerous trees, it allows for the single person to stand out. Having a single image among numerous other ones, adds emphasis to the single image. In this particular image, the single person creates an almost eery and frightening effect—This could also be by the images colouring. The repeated trees automatically makes me think that this is a forest, and the colouring suggests night. Therefore, with just one glance, I know (or think) that the woman is alone at night in a forest, surrounded by nothing besides trees. This automatically raises questions in my brain about why she might be there and a whole story is created. If I had seen the same picture, without the repeated trees, I may not have reacted in the same way—If it was just one tree she could be standing outside her house. In conclusion, repetition adds detail and drama to an image.

Generally one might think that if something is repeated multiple times that that is what should stand out in an image. However, often repetition works in just the opposite way. When something is repeated so many times, such as in this photo, it can blend into the background. This may be a bad thing and something that people should remember when designing, but if done correctly—as in this picture, it works. Having the repeated phrase “ What made you think it’s be different this time?” sort of fade into the background it allows for the main message “Different font same old story” stand out. By having the sentence repeated multiple times it creates unison. It also creates a visually interesting background—It is definitely more fun to look at then a solid background!

________________________________________________Alignment

When items on a page are aligned to create visual connection. When pictures aren’t aligned correctly it is hard to find the start of each new word and creates overall confusion. 

This is an example of bad alignment:

In the picture below things are lined up to the right which makes it easier to find the next word on the page & creates better visual interest.

Another example of good alignmnet is a flight time chart. It is organized in a way to make it easy for eyes to read locate times:

________________________________________________Proximity

When one groups related items together. It makes separate items appear to be a cohesive group.

In the image to the left, many different small images are lined up on top of each other. Even though each line of images is completely different, because they are grouped together they become a cohesive group.

This is especially seen in advertisements. For a company it can be hard to sell an item—such as shoes because they are all different. To the right is a picture I found online. By lining the shoes up it shows that they are all a part of the same group—wether or not they are all visually identical or not.

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Overall, These four elements prove that design is a lot of work. For something to look visually interesting and draw in an audience it must embody most, if not all of these 4 elements.

*Please note that none of the pictures above are mine. I do not claim the rights to any of them. They are just pictures I found online and worked well as examples