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Fundamentals of Composition

Good composition is an essential element of all art forms, graphic or otherwise, and should be considered the foundation of visual communication. Successful graphic designers are masters of the fundamentals that underlie all aspects of design. Elements on a page or on the web, in motion or in three dimensions, should always be led by concern for spacing, visual organization, style, and the size and format of the finished work.

Graphic design projects use text and image in concert, with consideration for the relationships established between each of the elements. These compositions should also establish a visual hierarchy that directs the viewer's eye through a deliberate visual sequence.

"Visual literacy also is an ability to view any image as an abstraction, to understand what is happening in purely visual terms as well as knowing and understanding visual terminology. It involves training the eyes to see minute detail and being sensitive to color, shape, form, and line. It has little or nothing to do with content or style"

Rob Roy Kelly

MODULE 1 BASICS OF COMPOSITION

Composition refers to the visual structure and organization of elements within a design. It concerns the process of combining distinct parts or elements to form a whole. Composition involves seeing the whole as greater than its parts, and is just as important as the individual elements that make up a design.

Designers organize images and text-each with their own shapes, sizes, colors, and textures-in many different media and in a wide range of formats: from two- and three-dimensional black-and-white design through full-color work to web-based and time-based (moving) imagery. A practical understanding and exploration of composition is crucial for effective visual communication: it is the most significant tool in guiding the viewer through the complexity of visuals to the intended message. To create effective design work, no matter which medium you are working in, you must understand the principles of good composition.

Building a composition In this series, horizontal and vertical lines gradually translate into lines of typography to illustrate a concept. The same principles of placement and relationship apply to the placement of body text and headline, and the hierarchy should be examined carefully to ensure typography is read in the proper sequence.

Carefully placed horizontal and vertical lines of varying weights show a gradually imposed order as they begin to form a grid.

The substitution of typography for lines, using the word "structure," reinforces the concept and identifies the relationship between typographic point sizes and line weights.

The structure of the series continues to build with layers of typographic lines working in concert to suggest heavier masses of line.

The final composition adds closely locked forms of typographic lines to create an architectural composition where each weighted area is visually supported.

Negative space Placement on the page is critical. In the first composition, the shapes appear to be aggressively competing for space. When the objects are reduced in size and placed in the lower corner of the page, they appear to be racing to exit the image.

Organized chaos In the initial composition, the placement of the circles creates tension though asymmetry and cropped edges. As the second and third compositions develop, the same principles are in play, using texture to create mass, and repetition and variation in placement.

Space and layers

By using type as image and transparent circular forms, this poster gives the illusion of layering. The relationship between positive and negative space, the strength of the horizontal letterforms, and the variation in scale all work together to attract and direct the viewer's attention.

Theories of composition

Throughout the history of the visual arts, different theories of composition have been advanced. Vitruvius, the Roman architect and engineer, devised a mathematical formula for the division of space within a picture. His solution, known as the golden section, golden mean, or golden rectangle, was based on a set ratio between the longer and shorter sides of a rectangle. This principle profoundly affected theories in mathematics, architecture, painting, graphic design, and industrial design regarding the use of spatial composition. The French painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954) put greater emphasis on inspiration, maintaining that composition is the art of arranging elements to express feelings.

Most contemporary theories have acknowledged the following elements as important considerations in composition: balance (the deliberate distribution of elements on a page); consistency or harmony (similarities in visual objects); contrast (obvious differences in visual elements); proximity (the relationships in the placement of the elements in play); repetition with variation; and white space (the deliberate open areas in a composition that give the viewer the ability to focus on everything else).

Form and space

Positive space is a form or object that, to the eye, appears to exist. This can be a solid shape of any size, a line, or simply a texture. Negative space is everything around or within an object, the "empty" space that helps to define the borders of the positive image. It is important to learn to effectively control the relationship between positive and negative space, and to explore this in basic compositional studies, before moving on to more complex designs. In general, negative space works to support the positive "image" in any given area (also called the picture plane). To create a more considered and effective composition, control the relationship between positive and negative elements, and recognize the effect each has on the other.

White space can create tension or contrast, or can add the welcome open space needed to reflect on complex, visually active, and textural images. You can easily see the effects of open space on the overall feel of a composition by altering the ratio of positive to negative. If you place a single dot in the center of a relatively large square of white, far from disappearing, the dot becomes more important. This is because the expanse of white space highlights and focuses attention on the dot itself. You can also actively encourage ambiguity between picture elements and background. For example, a particular group of forms can come together to support each other and compete in such a way that the (normally negative) space is given form by the positive elements, as in figure-ground relationships (see page 36).

The space around the rice-shaped white shape in the black box is repeated in the relationship of the typography in the square above it, and in the placement of the whole object on the page in the brochure.

Expanded space The perfect placement of a single white mark in a black square establishes the relationships for a greater extended system. Repetition with variation is demonstrated by the placement of the word treatment above the rice/box, reversing the angle of the rice by creating a triangle in the white space and enforcing the figure-ground reversal of the squares.

The packaging and display add texture in the choice of photography and in the use of the product itself.

The placement of the double box mark at the juncture of white space and image on the page echoes the packaging.

Layers of color This composition relies on color contrasts and layering. The bright, translucent, red typography sits on top of black line drawings, allowing the shapes and illustrations to be seen through the written message. The impact of the black-and-white illustration is heightened with the addition of selective red coloring, tying the two layers of information together more intrinsically.

Make it new Simple shapes, lines, and circles suggest machines that defined an industrial society in this graphic illustration about the Modernist movement in arts and culture.

Creative composition These three images show how the relationship of composition in photography can translate to graphic images and, in this case, to the development of a logo.

Symbolism Dots, lines, and shapes can be used as powerful symbols in the right context. Artist El Lissitzky combined geometric shapes and a bold red, white, and black palette to create a strong political statement in Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919. The sharp red triangle of the Bolshevik army is invading and dividing the white circle in this graphic statement on the Russian Civil War.

Dots and lines

A dot exists as a mark, on its own, as a point in space, and it can also be the start of a line. Many points together start to set up a rhythm or a pattern that, depending on uniformity, repetitiveness, scale, or quantity, can suggest regularity or variation, and can express tense or relaxed sensibilities.

A line is a pathway between any two points. It can be straight, curved, thick, thin, horizontal, diagonal, jagged, solid, gestural, or broken. Soft, sensuous lines imply tranquility and harmony, whereas sharp, zigzagged...