What is element of design
Just as the bones of a building carry the structure from its most basic existence onward and include bricks, sands, cement, gravel, water, and aggregate, design also has its intrinsic building blocks called the elements of design.
Well combining and manipulating these elements is what forms the structure at the base of any good and attractive design.
There are totally 9 elemets of design as follows
- Point
- Line
- Area
- Shape
- Color
- Texture
- Volume
- Mass
- Space
Point as an element of design
- Point is the most fundamental of all design elements. They can be represented at the zero-dimensional level, not having both dimension and mass. A point is only a location in space defined by coordinates. It seems insignificant in and of itself with respect to everything else, but it becomes the key building block of all other possible components of design. In the context of design, points are the identical representative to atoms-the smallest indivisible unit of matter-as the smallest indivisible unit of visual form. The intersection of two lines creates a point.
- A point is a place where the eye gets fixed or focused and does not initiates any movement. When we zoom into a point the size of the point does not increases instead the x, y coordinates of the point gets calliberated further.
Design functionalities of point as an element of design
- Points can be used to draw attention in a viewer's eye.
- It is visual anchor, a place where the eye can rest before moving on.
- By the careful placement of such points of intersection, designers can guide the viewer's eye through a composition with the rhythm and flow.
- When designers know and understand this just basic property of a point, they can even point or place them in such a way within the composition that they set up hierarchies.
- Points can also be used to simplify and represent concept objects and concepts.
Point used as visual focus
In the above image there may be so many objects but your eyes first saw the yellow dot and was fixed on it for a while before moving on to other objects and capturing the entire image. This is what is called as creating visual focus using point.
Point used to re-direct user's attention
In the above image your eyes moved from left to right because the distance between the points kept decreasing as we moved towards right. This is how we use points to re-direct viewer's attention.
Conclusion
Depending on the understanding of the nature of the point, designers can work by strategically placing the point where they want in the composition to create visual hierarchies, direct the user's attention, and even instigate certain emotions the designer intends for the viewer. The point is an important component of the overall figure and the whole effectiveness and impact of a design, bringing it all together.
