How the principles of design shape visual aesthetics

Visual design arranges basic visual elements according to design principles to make a product's overall appearance consistent, and Alan Hashimoto and Mike Clayton published Visual Design Fundamentals: A Digital Approach in 2004. What choices help create that consistency, and how can you understand their effects? The lessons consider how colour and the relationship between shapes and empty space contribute to visual design.

1 article, 1 book · about 15 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   

   "The Key Elements & Principles of Visual Design" · interaction-design.org · 15 min read

   An additive mix of red, blue and green colors on screens will produce white light. In digital design, colors mix additively because screens emit light and colors add to one another. In visual design, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) logo uses confusion between positive shape and negative space to create a panda image. It suggests the rest of the panda with white space around black shapes rather than drawing it explicitly.

2. Book
   

   The Design of Everyday Things · Bookshop.org

   The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman is for anyone who designs things for humans to use, from physical objects to computer programs and conceptual tools, and for anyone who uses what another person has created.

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