At SXSW the Adobe Corporation hosted many talks. I saw the whole of one (well, minus the time I stepped out of the room to speak to a former coworker) which I hope to blog about later and then, following it, I saw a piece of another by a Paul Trani called "5 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About Design" from which I had to duck out early. Interesting things said in what I got to see included:
- Design fundamental concepts include: variety, contrast, symmetry, balance, and tension
- Concepts on the left side of the brain include order, balance, symmetry, and space, while concepts on the right side of the brain include variants, contrast, tension, scale, and texture. The left side represents stability while the right side represents excitement. You need the right mix of both. Perhaps in a web page the body copy could show stability while the header could show excitement. This was an example Paul gave.
- It is important to think about where the eye will read, first, second, third...
- There is a golden ratio in design in which the sum of a and b over a is equal to a over b. Both are equal to roughly 1.61803. That is the only way it may work out. To use this ratio define an area such that there is either a seam or a point of interest not midway between two side sides, but 1.61803 "units" into that which is 2.61803 "units" across. Do not break up content by cutting an area evenly in half. Do not center things meant to draw the eye. Instead use the golden ratio.
I close with an interesting scene from Darren Aronofsky's Pi:
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