Visual Design Elements

Visual Design Elements are considered the most important things in design; they are visible characteristics contributing to the appearance of a form, line, shape/mass, light/value, color, texture, space, time and motion.

      - The point: 

     The point is the first and simplest element of visual design. Often it is the personal handwriting of the artist that can be natural. These can vary in size, value, regularity or irregularity, and can be used alone or as a unit in a group which forms a line or shape in the image. The European artists have been drawing four points in the colors which consists of (CYMK) in the pictures and printing.

 

-  Line and direction:

It's collection of many points in a certain direction, that direction determines the meanings of the lines, like the line that goes up it make you feel strong, the line goes down make you feel like falling down, the horizontal line relaxing like the sea, the leaning makes you feel of moving, lines can be horizontal, vertical or diagonal, straight or curved, thick or thin. 

- Shape and configuration:

Shape:  Format is a complete and closed line, Shapes can be in many forms including geometric shapes, natural, spontaneous or random, they are flat and can express length and width.

Geometric shapes: divided into three basic forms (Square, Circle, and Triangle) and all of these forms are material or moral perspective.

• Square: it's a limited space and means of clarity and you may feel board

• Triangle: you feel movement and may feel conflict

• Circle: give you the feel of softness

Geometric shapes are clear and specific give you a system when you use it, it’s a clean and simple forms.

Natural forms:  It stems from the nature and it's easy on the eye to see it
 spontaneous forms:  create a without any thoughts and shows in a normal way to the eye like mountains.

Configuration: is a mix different elements and you can put them together like a point and a line, the shape and picture to make a specific design, and how the designer mix these forms and stuff is the basis of composition, such as organizing forms next to each other to design something, and it's considered the hardest things to do by the designer. There are several types of them like hierarchical, spiral, wavy and circular. Configurations hierarchical are considered the strongest, and the method of distribution is to make the shapes large and heavy at the bottom and the small shapes in the top order by size, density and color type.

- Texture:

we refer to the surface quality in art work. We associate textures with the way that things look s or feel. Everything has some type of texture. We describe things as being rough, smooth, silky, shiny and fuzzy.

Value:

The Value refers to dark and light. Value contrasts help us to see and understand a two-dimensional work of art. This type can be read because of the contrast of dark letters and light background. Value contrast is also evident in colors, which enables us to read shapes in a painting.

- Volume and Mass:

Mass is a physical property of objects and Measured in units of gram and kilogram; It's an interesting visual element because it defines 3D visuals that have length, width and depth and most visuals used in print and media are only 2D. Here we must distinguish between shapes and mass, we often confuse them. Shape represents the core content in painting or in art; while the mass gives it stiffness shapes and distinguish them from their surroundings. Therefore we often try to illustrate volume (mass) through shading, lighting, color and other elements or design features.

- Color:

Color has the strongest effect on our emotions. It is the element we use to create the mood or atmosphere of an artwork. They are many uncounted colors but there are two main types of colors: cool colors namely blue and its derivatives, and there are red hot colors and its derivatives. The three main colors are: red, yellow, blue.

 The shades or mix two colors will produce other colors, called the (secondary colors). White called (rays) and not (color), black color formed by mixing all the colors with each other, some may wonder about the gray colors, it's a combination of black degrees (densities) and certain white.
Color can convey a message. It can change or emphasize the meaning of a word or an image. In design, color should support the message whether it is an advertisement, a website, a logo, or any persuasive text.

- Space:

Space can be used to both separate and connect elements in a design. Wider spaces separate elements from each other and narrower spaces connect elements to reveal relationships between them.

It's considered one of the most important elements to highlight the shapes and dimensions give the design a wonderful visual.
When the designer uses lines to divide the space it makes an interesting and enjoyable design, if the designer active his mind to build an aesthetic relationship between the space and others he will design a beautiful things. Space gives the important amount to the mass, as it helps to re-create meaning expressive of the blocks.

- Perspective:

One of the most important visual design elements. It indicates depth in a two-dimensional image.
It is a manifestation of geometric and natural forms in the rear third dimension.

Types of perspective:

• Western perspective: It is a line that is moving towards you and meet the depth of the scene in the corner points, which are either one or two points according to what you see from the front or from the side (angles)

• Eastern perspective: you can see it in India, Iran and Iraq, they are very old and don't care of lines meeting but is always parallel.

Be familiar with the visual design elements will help to create a more effective visual messages that you as a designer, a photographer or an artist, it helps you to be able to talk about what you see in visual language using visual vocabulary.