Definition:
The principles of design suggest how a designer can best arrange the various elements of a page layout in connection to the overall design and to each other.
In landscape painting, principles of design might govern where the artist places the mountains or how many clouds are in the sky. In page layout, the principles of design govern how many colors are used, the sizes of fonts, how many columns of text there are, or whether pictures appear next to each other or spread across the page — creating effective and pleasing arrangements of text and graphics.
Commonly applied principles of design include:
- alignment
how elements on the page line up with each other and with margins - balance
the distribution of elements on the page - consistency
uniform use of design elements - contrast
differences between items on the page - emphasis
creating a focal point - proximity
how close together or far apart items are to each other - repetition
use of the same colors, styles, shapes, or other elements and principles throughout a document - unity
how well parts of the document work together (see proximity) - white space
the use of emptiness to give a layout breathing room
Also Known As: design principles | principles of graphic design
Examples:
"In the illustration on this page, some principles of design at work include contrast between the font size and style of the headings with small text blocks, and contrast of light red script with black sans serif, repeating horizontal lines, the balance of short, large headlines with longer but smaller, lighter text blocks, headings aligned the same and all the small text blocks aligned the same."
