Critiquing Tools - Elements and Principles

Elements of Design

The elements of design play an important role in the creation and success of a piece of art, whether it's for outdoor, indoor, digital or print medium. These elements include:

Line

Line is the basic element that refers to the continuous movement of a point along a surface, such as by a pencil or brush. Every line has length, thickness, and direction. There are curve, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, zigzag, wavy, parallel, dash, and dotted lines.

Color

Color occurs when light hits the surface of an object and is reflected back to the eye and is used to create illusion of depth. Color and particularly contrasting color is also used to draw the attention to a particular part of the image. In some cases of interior design, color can be added to increase visual appeal. There are primary colors, secondary colors, and tertiary colors. Complimentary colors are colors that are opposite to each other on the color wheel. Complimentary colors are used to create contrast. Analogous colors are colors that are found side by side on the color wheel. These can be used to create color harmony. Monochromatic colors are tints and shades of one color. Tint of one color is to add white to the color and shade is to add black to the color. Warm colors are a group of colors that consist of reds, yellows, and oranges. Cool colors are group of colors that consist of purples, greens, and blues.

Shape

Shape is an area enclosed by lines. Shapes are two dimensional or in other words flat. They can be geometric or organic.

Texture

Texture is the way the surface of an object feels. In art, there are two types of texture: tactile and implied. Tactile texture (real texture) is the way the surface of an object actual feels. Implied texture is the way the surface on an object looks like it feels. The texture may look rough, fizzy, gritty, but cannot actual be felt. This type of texture is used by artist when drawing or painting.

Form

Form is any three dimensional object. Form can be measured, from top to bottom (height), side to side (width), and from back to front (depth). There are two types of form, geometric (man-made) and natural (organic form).

Principles of Design

Scale
Scale involves the relationship of size between objects, comparing one object to another.

Rhythm
The recurrence of elements within a piece: colors, lines, shapes, values, etc. Any element that occurs is generally echoed, often with some variation to maintain interest. Rhythm in interior design also may be used to reduce randomness.

Dynamics
The arrangement of visual elements in a composition to suggest the illusion of movement or direction. The effective use of dynamics in a design can add an emotive characteristic to your design making it appear restful and calming or active and energetic.

Stability
To be solid and balanced in terms of design, with each element set using a grid structure either horizontally or vertically.