![]() ![]() A lack of entry point will increase the cognitive load on visitors. They’ll have to pause and think where to look first and think about what’s truly important on the page. Without an entry point, viewers will have to work harder to find their way into your design. Whatever message you want people to take away should be clearly communicated in or near your dominant element. It should emphasize your most important information, because it might be the only thing anyone will see. The dominant element is noticed first and sets the context for what’s seen next. This is how you start a conversation with visitors. It should attract visitors to the first place you want them to look. Your dominant element is the starting point for the story you’re telling. It’s the element that attracts the eye first, more than anything else on the page.īe careful not to make the element so dominant that it completely obscures everything else, but do make it stand out in the design. The dominant element in a design is the one with the greatest visual weight (or the one that everything else points to). Ideally, you want a single dominant element. However, both will compete for attention and could ultimately be distracting without the right overall balance in your competition. You can also have co-dominance, where two dominant elements exist within a composition. If there are enough directional cues, the element could become dominant even if it’s of lesser visual weight than other elements on the page. For example, you might surround an element with arrows all pointing to that element. You can create dominance through visual direction as well. As a reminder, here are the most common characteristics you can vary to set different visual weights: You can vary the same characteristics that we talked about in the last couple of articles in this series. Your goal is to create elements with noticeable differences in visual weight. To exert dominance, an element has to look different from the elements it’s meant to dominate. Identical items can’t dominate each other. You create dominance through contrast, emphasis and relative visual weight. The greater its visual weight, the more an element will attract the eye and exhibit dominance. ![]() You design one element to have more dominance than another by giving it more visual weight. Without conscious control, you’d just hope that things all work out and that the important information will attract attention. Some elements will dominate, and some will be subordinate. ( View large version)Īs you develop a composition, you’ll see numerous elements exerting dominance over each other. The circle exerts dominance over the square due to their relative sizes. It will seem to exert force on what’s around it. The more dominant element likely has greater visual weight than the elements it dominates. It might even appear to exhibit some sort of control over the less dominant element. The more dominant element will attract the eye and get noticed first. Either the elements will be equal in every way or one will exert some level of dominance over the other. DominanceĬompare any two elements in a design. Some elements need to dominate others in order for your design to display any sort of visual hierarchy. For one element to stand out, another has to serve as the background from which the first is to stand out. Everything is louder, but still nothing is heard.Įmphasis is relative. When you try to do that, all of your design elements compete for attention and nothing stands out. Design Principles: Visual Weight and Visual Direction.Design Principles: Connecting and Separating Elements Through Contrast and Similarity.Design Principles: Space and the Figure-Ground Relationship.Design Principles: Visual Perception and the Principles of Gestalt. ![]() You can find the first four posts in the series here: Note: This is the fifth post in a series on design principles. In order for some elements in a design to stand out, other elements must fade into the background. And once the button is bigger, the heading is going to start looking small again.įundamental design principles part 5: You can’t emphasize everything. Of course, now that the logo and heading are bigger, both are going to attract more attention than the main call-to-action button, which will need to be made bigger. The clients wants to make the logo bigger. ![]() The new heading stands out, but now the logo is too small in comparison and isn’t getting noticed. Has a client ever asked you to make the logo bigger? Maybe they asked that just after you completed their request to make a heading bigger. ![]()
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