Graphic Design Theory - Unity & Harmony

1. Introduction: Out of all the terms commonly used in the context of graphic design, unity and harmony are probably the most ambiguous ones. There are many ways to unify elements in a design to create pleasing compositions and achieve consistency. In this course, we will learn the most commonly used techniques including repetition, visual rhythm, variety, framing, grouping patterns, and so much more. We will also analyze hundreds of amazing designs from all areas of graphic design to help you easily visualize and understand all the terms and rules that are covered in this course. Together with the exciting class project that I hope you will complete at the end of the course. You also have the analysis worksheet and the term glossary to help you practice everything that you've learned. I hope you are just as excited as I am to get started and dive into the sea of knowledge and beautiful graphic design examples. 2. Unity and Harmony: It is essential to achieve unity and harmony within your designs to create pleasing compositions and layouts. These two terms sound very similar, and they can almost be considered as synonyms of each other. However, there is a subtle difference between their meanings. The way I like to think of them is that we achieve unity by applying all the design principles. And harmony is something that we achieve on top of unity by fine tuning those principles and deciding how much or with what intensity we apply them to our design. So if you look at it this way, you can achieve unity without harmony. But you can't achieve harmony without unity. But which are the principles that we actually need to achieve unity? Well, you can think of pretty much all the guest all principles and they will be helping you in creating unity. One obvious one is similarity and continuity. For instance, with these three different covers for these booklets, we can immediately see that there is some kind of connection or unity between them thanks to the elements that are repeated. So we have the typography placed in the same position with the same format and size. Even though the colors of these thick lines are changing between the three booklets, there is one color that's repeated, which is this gray one, which we can see in all of them. But besides that, these 45 degree angles are also the same in all of the three compositions. And even the thickness of these lines are the same on all of them. By having them laid out next to each other, it also almost feels like these lines can be continued from one cover to the next. In case of a series like this one, you want to achieve that unity not only within the design, but also between the different versions of covers. While at the same time, you also want to make sure that there is enough difference between them which can be achieved by including some kind of contrast. Now, contrast is definitely something with which you can disrupt harmony in the design, but clever use of contrast can actually emphasize unity. Here is another series of compositions by the amazing artist called Magda Lopez. And we can see in his work that he uses lots of different ways of disrupting the harmony in each of these compositions. Either by cutting, portrays apart or covering up faces with squares. But even when these disruptive details are introduced, they always connect to the general composition. For instance, here, these gradients work perfectly well with the gradients used in the background and also the gradients used on the body. Even disruptive details like these can help to create unity and harmony. But seeing a couple of examples of this project next to each other, we can also see that the whole series has some kind of harmony. So even the individual compositions have similarities between them. And that helps to establish a pleasing result when they are all laid out next to each other. Like this, For image based social media like Instagram, it is also important to have harmony between the various posts. And harmony here, again, will first of all rely on the design principles being used and also recurring elements or colors, shapes and even treatments of images. Repetition and consistency are two big topics that we will be covering a lot more in the upcoming videos. But there's also a couple of interesting methods which you can avoid creating boring results even when you're just creating a single composition or a series of compositions like these. But if you are constantly repeating or re, using the same elements and same type of composition, that can easily get boring. It is also important to use things like rhythm and variety. Again, things that we will be covering in a lot more detail in upcoming videos. By looking at this Instagram feed, we can see, for instance, that the background color or the dominant color in each of these posts there is, even though there is a particular color palette that is being used, you wouldn't see the yellow background used on two posts next to each other. It's here on the top. Then the next one is down here. And then again, it appears being the dominant color down there. Same goes for this purple background. We can see one example here, another one there, and we can say maybe it is also dominant on this one. And the same goes for this turquoise background. We have one here, another one up here, and another one down there. The similarity between these help to create unity, but the rhythm and variety applied makes the whole feed more dynamic and interesting to look at. So don't forget, creating harmony is not all about adding structure in your design. It's more sophisticated than that. For instance, you can create a harmonious composition by using asymmetry or the lack of symmetry, Like on this series of posters about user experience design where none of them has a central symmetry line. And most of the time we would have a much bigger item placed on one side and a smaller one on the other side. So these two are still balancing each other out or create a visual balance in the composition. And unity is achieved by using a grid within the design and having things aligned to each other. But also the consistency and repetition of colors and shapes amongst all of these posters in the series. When it comes to achieving unity with illustration, usually it comes down to the style. So if there is a distinct and very recognizable style applied to all the details within an illustration, it would feel that it's in harmony and everything is connected or united. We have a couple of great examples here, like this cookbook cover, where all the different objects are illustrated in that distinct style with sharp edges and slightly wonky proportions. The same goes for the skewed illustration of vegetables and fruits, where once again, even though the shapes are varied and there's a lot of different colors, the style of the drawings is the same. And also there is unity created with repeated or recurring details like the eyes and smiling mouths when creating a set of icons for print or a project. It's also of course, very important to create unity because you want to make sure that they feel like part of the same series. And this can be achieved once again by making sure there is consistency in the line weight, the colors, and also the radii used on the rounded corners. Even a page from a newspaper can feel united or harmonious again by reusing or repeating certain attributes or details. Here we can see that the green color is used in combination with black throughout the whole page. And even though these are independent articles, the whole layout feels connected and unified. And another area of graphic design where unity and harmony are both extremely important is branding where the logo of the company and all the other brand assets, like the color and typefaces that were selected, has to be used consistently wherever the brand appears to make sure that people can recognize it, now that we know how important it is to achieve unity and harmony in our designs. In the next videos, we will be covering certain methods and techniques which can help us to achieve them. 3. Repetition: Repetition is a very straightforward way of bringing unity to your designs, because when you are repeating the same elements over and over, they will obviously feel connected to each other. But of course, there's a lot more beyond unity that you can achieve by using repetition. It can also add emphasis to the repeated elements in your composition, similarly to repeated words in writing and speech. A great example of this is this Joker poster, which almost feels like posters that were laid on top of each other and torn apart. And the key detail is that big and freaky smile that keeps appearing again and again, slightly shifted each time. Here the repeated elements are slightly chaotic. And that works really well for this topic or the poster representing the mental state of the main character in the movie. While in this design, there is a very strict grid use for the repeated elements which was necessary to draw attention to that subtle transition that happens here at the bottom where the letter starts rotating, which eventually turns into the logo Nescafe, with that being the first letter. The small little tag line here at the bottom says, nothing wakes you up as Nescafe. So the whole point of this poster is to show the time that you spend sleeping and how a cup of coffee will help you to wake up. You can see that repetition is a great method to grab people's attention because at first, it is unusual to see one detail repeated so many times it almost looks like a mistake. But then we are also curious to spot any differences and find out why they were introduced. Interrupting something that's been repeated many times can create a very strong emphasis and focal point. This Edward is also a perfect example of that, where we have one small item here that almost lost amongst this pattern of red circles. And even though this ball is the same size as the other circles, and even the same color because of that subtle drop shadow on it. And of course that white line crossing over it still makes it possible to separate it from the rest of the repeated instances. By hiding and only making a subtle difference amongst all the repeated instances, you can, again, create a little bit of a visual challenge or game for the viewers, and that always helps to make your designs more engaging. Here is another very clever highlighter, advert. It's the needle in the haystack, so we have, again, repetition of the word hay, and the word needle is highlighted, creating that strong focal point. In this example, typography is used almost as a texture. So we have this big block of text which we don't actually have to read. It's enough if we read one of the words and immediately we can see that it's the same throughout, thanks to the fact that everything is perfectly aligned apart from, of course, that single word there, which is the whole message or point of this advert. Here is another example of the repetition of typography, where once again, even though we can read it, it also serves as a backdrop for this model. Creating this solid rectangle and emphasizing that this collection is for spring repetition can also be a great tool when you want to show or represent progress in your design. Like in this example, where we can see a person who is overweight or obese and another person at the bottom who is very fit and athletic. And it is the clever use of that posture which first looks more like an and then eventually transition towards something more like an from fat to fit. The same thing is achieved in this design, where the letters are forming the stairs from the iconic scene in the movie Rocky. And even though we are only seeing this particular point of time when he's reaching this third letter in our mind, we can already immediately see the direction and movement and the whole poster becomes very dynamic. Another interesting example of repetition, where the same silhouette of a female head is used in different colors over laid on top of each other to create a backdrop or container for the main typographic elements in this layout. And repetition usually works really well in combination with rhythm. The rhythm in this case is established by alternating between the large text and the smaller text. So once again, large text and then smaller texts, and once more, the larger text at the bottom. And you don't even need more back and forth than just this few times to already establish that visual rhythm in your composition. This is another topic that we will cover in a lot more detail in one of the upcoming videos. 4. Consistency: Although consistency sounds and feel similar to repetition, it is still slightly different and has a different meaning in graphic design. As we've seen in the previous video, repetition is about replicating and creating multiple instances of the same elements in our composition. Our consistency is more about reusing the same type face, the same color, or even the same treatment on images throughout our design to achieve unity. And consistency becomes much more important once your work starts to grow in size. So for instance, in a magazine, you would want to have consistency in where the page numbers are placed and all the details in the footers and headers should also be consistent. But the same applies to books where you would expect the same margins used and of course the same type face as well for the body copy and the headings and chapter titles. Without consistency, we wouldn't recognize our favorite magazine covers on the newspaper stand. And here we can see two brilliant examples of the magazine Dazed and Red, showing that they use the masthead consistently even if the color changes between issues. The fact that it's the same type face and the same size, and also it's in the same position, establishes the necessary consistency. In case of Time Magazine, it's not only the masthead that is used as a recurring element to assure consistency, but also the iconic red frame like we mentioned when we talked about unity and harmony, that illustrations can also be used to create consistency. Of course, it is crucial that the style of the illustrations have to be the same. And that is why magazines would hire illustrators to create all the illustrations necessary for a specific article. Like in this example, we can see that not only the colors of these illustrations are in harmony and unity, but also these weird and compressed poses create or establishes the consistency. When it comes to UX design, there are certain elements that are consistent throughout our experience, navigating an app or site. And that's most of the time, the menu at the bottom and also the menu on the top right corner or top left corner. But to assure a smooth learning curve for new users of our app, it's also useful to be consistent in where we place these common elements within our design. So we should not only be consistent within our actual work, but even consistent to what the user's expectations are based on their past experience with other apps. When it comes to responsive design, we also have to assure that there is consistency between the different screen sizes. When the viewer checks out the site on a computer, it should look and feel very similar to what they would see on a mobile device. So here we can see the desktop version of this site and the mobile version next to it. Once again, like before, consistency is achieved by using the same colors, the same type faces, and in this case, the same styling on images and buttons as you would expect. Consistency is also crucial for packaging, where if you have different flavors, for instance, you want to still make sure that users can immediately recognize that they are part of the same brand. And even if the colors of these drinks are completely different, thanks to the fact that every other element is consistent, it is easy to recognize them as different flavors of the same product. Consistency will also play a crucial role in a successful presentation design, where most of the time, you wouldn't want to shock the audience with completely different slides. And by reusing the same colors, typefaces, and even position for certain elements, you are reducing the cognitive load on the members in the audience. That basically means that they are at ease because they see familiar shapes and colors and designs amongst all the slides in the presentation. And they can really pay attention and focus on the actual contents of the presentation. Without consistency, brands wouldn't look professional. So it's crucial also for identity design and also for social media where you need unity and harmony between the feed of images. And once again, consistency and repeated use of the same type, faces, colors, and elements will help you greatly to achieve that. And there's one other tool that's very commonly used to ensure consistency in graphic design, which is using a grid. And you can see on this example of a magazine layout, even from this distance, we can spot things that are aligned to the same position within the composition. So this image here is in the same alignment as that one up there on another spread. Or once again here is another alignment. So the text here on this page or spread is also aligned to the same position as on this page. And working with grids in design is a huge topic and it's very important. So we will be covering it in a lot more detail once we get to the topic titled space. 5. Visual Rhythm: Rhythm is another principle that goes hand in hand with repetition. It is very similar, but instead of repeating things in a very orderly fashion, usually when we use rhythm in design, it means that we are introducing some kind of alternating pattern instead of just having a static grid of all the copies of the same object. When we use rhythm, we are suggesting movement and action in our compositions. Rhythm is a term that originally is usually mentioned when we talk about music. But just like communication and speech has its own tempo and pacing, sometimes we can talk fast or sometimes we can slow down. And that can help to grab people's attention. The same thing we can do in visual communication. So graphic design can also have its own visual pacing and visual tempo. So let's take a look at some of these examples to better understand how to apply rhythm. And we will also discover that there's actually five different ways of using rhythm in this video. Here is an amazing illustrated poster of The Seven Samurai film by Akira Kurasava which relies heavily on rhythm. And in this specific case, it is a regular rhythm. So there's a couple of different elements here used to introduce the rhythm in the composition. First of all, we have these big brush strokes. So we are starting with a black brush stroke. Then there is a gap, and then comes another brush stroke. Now there's even a sense of movement with brush strokes, and although it is a little bit hard to say which direction they are coming from, it feels like probably the first one was going to the right, then the next one was going to the left, and then again right, and then again left again. As I said, it's not completely clear because we can't see the full brush strokes. So they are cropped in this composition, but still there is a sense of alternating directions that already creates a rhythm. Instead of making it clear or obvious that they are going all in the same direction, this randomness already creates that visual interest that can be introduced by using rhythm. But of course, by adding these brushstrokes and leaving some gap in between them also creates rhythm. We have dark details, then we have these bright details or white space. Then again, we have a brushstroke. Then again, white, black, white, black. Counterbalancing the colors of these brush strokes and the white space in between them, we have the opposite or inverse colors used on the letters placed in the center of the composition. On the black brush stroke we have a white letter. Then on the white space we have a black letter. And so on and so forth. So even if we just look at the letters and read the word samurai, we also see a rhythm with the alternating colors. But what really brings everything together and what really adds a huge emphasis on the rhythm in this composition are the actual samurai characters and their placement or alignment within the composition. We start on the left, then go right, then back again, and so on and so forth. We are continuing this zigzag motion. Now in terms of the samurais and the text in the middle, I would call this irregular rhythm, as I already mentioned in the beginning. But by looking at the brush strokes and the white spaces between them, we could also call this a random rhythm. Because the size of these brush strokes and the space between them is completely random, so there's no equal space or thickness applied. And I think that helps to build up this tension within this composition, which works really well for the theme of the movie. So we have both regular rhythm, but also a random or slightly chaotic rhythm at the same time. And even though we would think that two different types of rhythms would clash, in this case they work perfectly well together. This layout uses a similar kind of rhythm but solely relying on typography. And here, instead of having seven separate sections, we have ten of them, which is obviously an even number. So the designer could place the first five of these commandments on the left when aligned them to the left, while having the rest of them, 6-10 aligned on the right. But instead of creating two completely separate columns, which we can imagine would be something like that, the designer decided to merge these two together and create this interesting dynamic by once again using a regular rhythm. Now this could actually be counterproductive or confusing if you had to read these commandments in the right order. If there was an issue by reading the first one and then the sixth one, then I wouldn't recommend using this layout. But since it doesn't really matter in what order you read these commandments, it actually works perfectly fine the way it is you as the viewer can decide whether you want to read them in this order. So going from top to bottom, or you would actually follow the intended order, which would be number 12345, and then continue on the right side all the way from number six down to number ten. What helps to establish the rhythm here is simply the alignment of the text, but also the subtle difference in the color of the text. Notice how the text both for the numbers and the body copy is set in black on the left side. So all of these are set in black. While these here on the right, both the numbers and the body copy is set in a shade of gray. Even just by using the color, it would have been enough to separate these from each other, But to make this pattern or rhythm more obvious, we also have the alignment used, where we have this indent on the numbers on the right side compared to all the numbers that we have here on the left side, which creates this separate structure or group here on the right side. 6. Flowing and Progressive Rhythm: Another interesting type of rhythm that you can introduce in your compositions is called flowing rhythm. And for this also, we have a couple of examples here on the board. Let's start with this illustration in which we have a mesh of blue lines in the background which is disturbed or warped by the motion of this sailboat here on the bottom left. In case the line stayed completely straight, this would be a regular rhythm. But because now they are warped, as we mentioned, this creates this flowing rhythm. So the lines now turned into little waves, and each of these wave is slightly different from one another. So again, there is no real regularity in them. That's why I would call this a flowing rhythm. The same idea can also be applied just simply by using typography. And I believe that this is a perfect example of it, where even without seeing any trace or sign of a beach or the sea, we can still imagine that beautiful rhythm of the waves washing ashore of a sandy beach. Besides the rhythmic bending of the typography, there is also obviously a strong hint using these colors, the blue of the sea and the yellow of the sand. Here's another brilliant composition using flowing rhythm. But I believe I would call even this one flowing rhythm or random rhythm distortion, or glitching of this typography is used to create that unique rhythm and dynamic in this composition. Flowing rhythm is something that we see often in nature. Like as I said on the beach, but also in deserts. The sand dunes are formed and shaped in a way that they create again, this beautiful flowing rhythm. It can be replicated not only in graphic design but also in architecture, as this example shows it perfectly. There is another interesting type of rhythm called progressive rhythm, where we change one characteristic each time something is repeated. In this case, instead of just having the same text repeated over and over again and align perfectly on top of each other, we already have a little bit of forward motion if we start from the bottom, so a slight indent each time to the right. But what makes it interesting is even though there is a difference in where the text starts, the letter B is perfectly aligned throughout the whole composition. And what changes between each row is the way that the letter S are stretched on this side and here. So while here on the top it starts being smaller, but already slightly stretched. As we go down, it's getting more stretched. While we see the opposite happening on the right, where the stretching of the letter E is increasing as we go upwards. There is also a subtle difference in how much the letter B is stretched in each row, As you can see here on the right side, it's not a perfectly straight line, but it's not as noticeable as what we can see on the letter E on both sides. Progressive rhythms can be used for creating some kind of build up in your composition, almost like a crescendo in music where we slowly increase the intensity or a diminuendo, which is another term used in music for slowly and gradually decreasing the intensity. And since we're talking about music, let's just take a look at this poster of a jazz festival. Here once again we have a very interesting use of rhythm. And I wonder whether you will be able to tell on your own by now what kind of rhythm you can spot here. If you look at the composition as a whole, you will probably pick a specific type of rhythm, but you can also look at certain parts within the composition on its own or individually. And in that case, you can also notice different types of rhythms used in various places. So an obvious one would be here at the bottom, where we have the same type of lines, the zigzag lines, repeated once again. We have black ones and then white ones. You can call this an alternating pattern if you consider them being white and black lines next to each other. Or if you consider it just simply black lines with white space around them. You can even call it a regular pattern. But by looking at the composition as a whole, I would say that we can see a beautiful example of a random rhythm in use. It is achieved by repeating these geometric forms, but not in an orderly fashion. And by the way, these forms also remind us of the instruments like symbols. We also have an abstract version of a keyboard, of a piano. And there's even the buttons that we would normally see on a wind instrument, like a saxophone or a clarinet here on the bottom and also here on the right side. So why was it a good idea from the designer to introduce this random rhythm in this case instead of the other types of rhythms we've seen. Well, because it works perfectly well with the type of festival it is. If you're familiar with jazz music, you probably know that it's all about improvisation. So it's the randomness of the music that makes it unique and recognizable. So the lesson to learn from this is that you as a designer should always have a good understanding of the topic of your design. So for instance, if you have to design a poster for a type of music that you have no understanding of, you most likely won't be able to capture the essence of the subject and you won't be able to create an effective composition. I'm not saying that you shouldn't work on projects where the topic is something that you're not familiar with. It's more about you spending some time doing your research before you start creating your design concepts. That's very important. So even if you are completely unfamiliar with the subject, spending some time getting to know what you are going to design is going to make a huge difference in the quality of your work. 7. Variety: Variety is a brilliant way of making sure that you introduce interest in your work and also that you don't lose the attention of your viewers. It can be applied to pretty much anything you can think of, from music to the clothes that you're wearing or the way you speak or act. You name it. But more specifically in graphic design, is a great tool to create more engaging compositions. And you might be thinking that variety is actually almost the opposite of unity. So when we talked about unity, we mentioned that all the components and elements of our design need to somehow be connected to each other. But when we have variety, it almost feels like counterproductive, because we would have to introduce differences between the elements. But what's interesting is that you can actually achieve unity by using variety. So let me show you what I mean. Here is a great example of magazine spread or layout that uses unusual indense or alignment of the body copy. And it is further emphasized by these colorful lines next to them on the left side. So we have the blue lines, the red ones, and also the green ones. So there's definitely a variety both in the colors and also the indents used. However, there is also some structure here. Notice that the blue line is always used when the indent is the largest. So we can see that the space here is exactly the same here. And also once again here on the right. Then we have the green line, which forms an indent that's roughly half the size of the blue. And again, it's the same exact distance here, and here, and here as well. You can see if we were to connect these two lines here, it would be exactly in the same position. And finally, the red line is forming the furthest line to the left. And that's again, repeated throughout these three columns. And it's always in the same position even though that things feel a bit random because of the variety in the indents. There is still structure here, thanks to the repetition and even the rhythm that's applied to the varied indents. When you follow the text from the beginning to the end, you will notice that there's actually no pattern in the way that these indents are used. So we start with blue, then red, then green, then red comes, then blue, and then red again, then green. So there is no actual pattern here in terms of rhythm here. It would be a random rhythm, but because of the individual indents being repeated and used exactly in the same way each time, we can still call this repetition or rhythm, and it still forms a unity in the overall composition. Here's another beautiful example how variety and unity can work hand in hand. In this monochromatic composition, everything is using the same blue color. And almost every detail is created from simple lines. And the main typography itself, the Prague School of Design, ends up becoming part of that mesh or pattern of horizontal blue lines. The structure or grid in this composition are these blue lines. While the variety is mainly applied on the typography and how each letter is stretched in a different way to assure that we can still read this text. Some of the letters like here are still in normal width and also in this area and here at the bottom. While there are some extreme examples of stretching, for instance here on the letter G and also on the letter H and D. So you can see, as long as you strike a good balance between unity and variety in your composition, it's going to work, communicating the message, but also at the same time, it will be interesting and engaging for your viewers. But like always with all the other design principles, you have to be very good at fine tuning the amount of variety that you're introducing. If you add too much of it, your design can end up being confusing. And here's an interesting example where we definitely have a lot of variety. And if all of this handwritten text that we can see forming almost like a texture in this composition would be all different words. It might feel overpowering and confusing because we would want to read it, but it would be very hard to make sense of where the text starts and where it ends. But since here there's only like two or three words being repeated over and over, it doesn't actually get in the way. So variety here, again, is set at the right amount where it is adding interest, but doesn't distract from the message that the poster is communicating. 8. Masters of Variety: Now, I can't talk about variety without mentioning to amazing graphic designers. I'm sure you have heard of David Carson who is really revolutionary in graphic design. And I would say he is the one that's best at pushing the limits of the amount of variety used in compositions. The fact that he's breaking pretty much all of the rules in graphic design forms, his own unique system, how he is putting things together. And even though most of the time it is hard to make sense of what you're seeing, it definitely catches your eye and keeps you interested in looking at the composition. Another artist who's worth mentioning, who's using variety brilliantly is Asian Tro or otherwise known as Bogsm. I highly recommend to check out his hands profile because you will see some amazing work and in pretty much all of them, you will see how well he's applying variety in his compositions. By looking at this poster for instance, you can see that there's already all kinds of shapes and forms here. From perfect geometric shapes like a circle, to organic shapes that have irregular edges. And almost none of the elements or attributes are repeated. We know that by now that creating unity in a design and harmony is best achieved by repeating elements or creating recurring components. While here, things that are repeated are much less noticeable, they are almost disguised. If we look hard, we can notice that actually certain colors are repeated. Like this. Blue shows up here again on the right, even though it's slightly darker, it's still the same hue. This reddish brick color is used throughout the composition, so that's quite constant. But then we also have white used in a couple of areas. And then there is a highlight color that is not repeated anywhere else, this yellow here on this rectangle. We also have black or dark shades of gray used in a couple of areas also on this shape. By the way, again, this shape is the only one that uses a gradient which makes it feel more three dimensional than the rest of the composition. And then again, we only have this single shape here that uses a very strong high contrast pattern, while all the others are clean and not using patterns. Texture is something that's used on a couple of areas here, up there, also down here at the bottom and even on the circle. So that is something that reoccurs more often than the other components and it is hardly noticeable. But there's also these very thin white lines that appear on a couple of areas. They almost look like scratches on the poster. Because how irregular they are. But even though there is much more variety than repeated elements in this composition, it still somehow feels harmonious and balanced. Both David Carson and Bogazm's work is a good example that once you are very confident in applying the rules of graphic design, you will start pushing the limits and creating extreme versions, contradicting those rules, but still using just enough of the design principles to make things work and to still create something that people can understand and enjoy. 9. Framing: Framing is one of the easiest to understand ways or methods to create unity in graphic design composition. And it is something that we already talked about when we were discussing the Guest Start Principles or the Psychology of Design. There we refer to common regions, so areas in our design that should be grouped together. And most of the time this is achieved by using frames. Now even though, again, it sounds like a very obvious thing and straightforward, you can be very creative in how you apply frames in your design. And there's actually a lot of sophistication and nuance that you can add in the way that you apply them in your design. In this video, we will be analyzing and looking at some brilliant examples where framing is used very professionally. First off, let's start with this night poster, where we have the bounce text forming a frame within the composition. Here, this white line that is interrupted a couple of times still forms this visible rectangle, which we understand immediately as a frame. And what's interesting about it is that the text is kept within this rectangle. Even though it's moving up and down, it still forms a boundary. And because of it, the typography almost turns into an animation of a ball bouncing up and down in an enclosed space. I love the fact that the rectangle itself is in the background, while the typography starts behind the athlete, but then it comes in front, and then most likely again, it goes back behind. Whenever you are introducing depth by creating these intertwining details, like in this case, the photograph and this frame, and the typography moving back and forth in space, It also achieves this particular relationship between your components. And this itself is already creating some form of framing. So just think about this. Even the typography on its own, without that rectangle would already, in a way, frame the athlete. Because it starts behind it, then comes in front. And then again, we don't know whether these two letters are behind him or not, but we have that kind of sensation just simply by having the hidden behind his arm here. This is a great example how our mind can wander off, just simply being triggered by a small little detail like that overlap between the person and the typography. So your task as a graphic designer is to think of these triggers that you can introduce in your work, which will then help your viewers to start making assumptions of what's actually happening in your composition. Margins are also used in graphic design to form frames in compositions. Again, this design, we have a fairly wide margin. So this is what I would consider the margin, this gray area. And it's the same size all around on the top, bottom, left, and right. It works similarly to a post part to that you would place in an image frame that's hanging on the wall, that is that cardboard that's cut out in the middle. Which again creates some empty space or white space around the actual image within the frame. And just like with the image frames in designs, adding some white space around the edges always help to direct the viewer's attention to the center of the composition. This works particularly well when the composition itself is aligned to the center. And if you have high contrast in tonal values and color between the margin areas and the composition inside it, which again, we can see clearly here we have a very bright margin area and a darker region in the center. But this particular design also uses a couple of additional interesting solutions. Within the margins, we have an additional white thin line that is interlocking with this distorted image of the statue. So we can see that some areas are hidden away. So the statue is coming in front of that white line. While here at the bottom, the white line is in front. Again, it's similar to that bounce poster. It is going back and forth in space. Again, the head is coming in front. But not only that, the statue actually, in some places like here on the top, is protruding into the space of the margins. This is something that we would normally refer to as out of bounds effect or method. You can emphasize or increase the sense of depth. And that's always a good thing in design because of course, everything is two dimensional. We are working in a flat piece of paper or screen. And anything that makes things feel more three dimensional or introducing that depth is going to captivate viewers and going to invite them to look at your composition. And if that was not interesting already, the designer in this case also added some text on the left and the right sides, which is a little bit hard to read. But most likely it needs to be read in this direction. But you don't necessarily have to read this text or make sense of it, because it also acts as a form of framing device, holding the composition together from the two sides. Even though it is quite loose and random, it still almost forms a bracket in each side. In this composition, we can see that you can have multiple elements and multiple framing used in the same design. And if you are balancing them well and incorporating them with your subject, then they can work really well in harmony together. 10. Unique Forms of Framing: There are many other examples on this board where we again see the margin being used. And again, like with this illustration here, we see these subtle out of bounds effects where again, some details are going over the margins. We also have other examples, like this poster here, where again, the typography is used to form the frame. Or another one further down here, where again, the subject is surrounded by typography. And in this case, I would even call the typography the margin, even though in this case it's not. Even so we have narrower margin on this side, while it is wider on the right and on the top. There is also a fun illustration here, the actual subject, in this case the cat that is playing a guitar is forming the frame for the composition. If we draw a rectangle here, we can see that the cat fits into it perfectly, even though the illustration is only suggesting that frame, thanks to the guestle principle closure, our eyes and mind will automatically connect these empty areas. Frames, as you can see, don't always have to be an independent element. It can even be created or suggested by the actual subject in your composition. This is another interesting example, when the margin area or the frame in the composition holds the actual information, while the center where we would expect the subject to appear is completely left out, and it is actually negative space. Remember, as a graphic designer, your task is to grab the attention of your viewers. And sometimes doing the opposite of what people are used to, or the usual solutions, like keeping the margins free or empty, can produce a more unique and exciting composition. So far, we've mainly seen geometric rectangular frames. But of course you can use more organic, curvy shapes as well as frames like in this composition. We have this shape working as a frame and holding the subject once again, subject coming out using the outer bounds effect. But besides that, we also have some typography used around the edges. And if I were to connect them together, they also form this almost invisible boundary or frame that still acts as a way of holding everything together. And it actually creates a nice contrast. Having this solid black text written all around this more soft pastor colors the curvy shapes in the center. That is also something you can consider, that your frame can blend into your composition or do the opposite, and really stand out by using high contrast. We've seen great examples of both of these solutions already. And it is really just up to you whether you want to draw attention to the frame or give it less emphasis. It is also another common technique in graphic design that typography is used as the frame here. Instead of geometric or organic shapes, we actually have these numbers which could also be letters of the alphabet that is applied as a frame for the scene that we can see in this composition. It would be a shame not to mention or show an example of National Geographic Magazines or their website when we are talking about frames, since they have their iconic yellow frame. And I chose this particular cover because in this case, they were really bold. And they pretty much covered up not only a big section of the frame, but even the masthead or the title of the magazine. And the reason why they can do that is because everyone recognizes that this is the National Geographic Magazine, mainly thanks to its iconic frame. And the main reason why this composition works so well, having this tree coming out of the frame both at the bottom and the top, and covering up the title is because the main article in this issue is about the tallest trees. And because it is hard to show these trees in their entirety, the designer decided to instead focus on a smaller section and emphasize their height by how much they take up of the cover. But of course, also by showing a person here on the side. This, of course, is also a crucial element in the composition because without a person in the image, it's always hard for us to relate or understand the proportions of something. So if you want your viewers to get an idea of the scale of something, it's always good to place a person or a commonly used object in the composition because that is something that we can all relate to. And by the way, you may have noticed that to create unity in this composition, we have the same color used on this supporting cover line that we can see this climber varying in terms of placement. Both this person and that supporting cover line are placed perfectly according to the rule of thirds. So there's many reasons to love this magazine cover. 11. Pattern: Patterns are very commonly used in graphic design, but they are also very important in fashion design and interior design. And we can see patterns all the time around us. We can see it on the wallpapers of rooms. We can see it on clothes that we wear, products that we buy. And the fact that we see them so often is just a testament to how appealing they can be and why it is so important to learn how to apply them in your graphic design compositions. So let's dive in and learn about the different types of patterns that you can create. And again, see a couple of very creative uses of them. First of all, here's a very colorful and vibrant packaging for this can of cider. And we can see that the pattern here in the background is the same one that's used on the can itself. And it acts as a backdrop on top of which the main information is presented in a separate frame. And the rest of the information is completely secluded from that pattern, using, again, a solid background color. Now, what we can learn from this particular example is that even if you are using a pattern from top to bottom within a composition, in this case the can, you can still make sure that both the legibility and readability of the typography in your design is not going to suffer. And it can be achieved simply by just covering up parts of the pattern. With these solid blocked shapes, notice how even the logo itself is using a solid background color. Again, making sure that it stands out from this vibrant and busy pattern. Here is another nice example of patterns used on packaging of a product. In this case, these are wrapping papers using regular patterns where the motifs are geometric shapes. So we call repeated details motives. That's useful term to remember. We call patterns regular where the motifs repeated in a predictable way. Compared to this, if we take a look at this poster, for instance, from Ikea, this is more of an irregular pattern where both the motifs are changing and even the way they are repeated is unpredictable. It was also another great example where the designer is challenging the viewer. So it is not so easy to find the message hidden within this composition. But eventually you will be able to read that. It says, where are my new socks? And also, you most likely will eventually find the question mark here at the bottom. And the way the designer achieved to make sure that we can still read this as text is of course by having the socks that are forming these letters slightly closer to each other than the rest of the socks around them. But also by using higher contrast colors that stand out a little bit more than the other socks in the general composition. So to be able to spot this better, if you squint your eyes while looking at this poster, you will be able to tell that the most contrasting colors are all used on those socks that are forming the letters. Here is another interesting composition where we can see the use of an irregular pattern, even though the motif, which is this triangle, is repeated. In this case, the weight is repeated is still unpredictable. And since we talked about framing in the last video, you can see that even these geometric shapes turned into a pattern can act as a frame. Because the image of this woman, in this case, is placed into the pattern itself. So don't feel like you are restricted of using patterns only in the background. As you can see, they can even become the containers or holding devices for the main subject in your composition. Or here's an even more extreme example, when the pattern itself becomes the subject. And the reason why this was possible is because it's such an iconic geometric pattern from the movie shining that it is enough just to show that in the background and we immediately can associate to the movie or the particular scene or the little boy riding his tricycle through the corridors in the hotel. Here's another great example where a pattern becomes much more integral to the whole composition and plays a more important role and becomes the subject itself. And once again, this I would call an irregular pattern because we don't have a clear motif that is repeated. But the reason why we would still consider this being a pattern is because it still uses recurring elements, like the floral elements, but also things like these watches and the tea cups and tea sets. The great thing about patterns is that since they are relying on repeated elements or motifs, they work perfectly well for achieving unity and harmony in your compositions. 12. Seamless Patterns: If you are planning to become a pattern designer, what you will have to learn is how to create seamless patterns. This basically means that you will have a tile created within which you might have several motives, but that tile is going to be repeated seamlessly, either using a standard and simple grid or a brick by row, or brick by column transitional grid. So let's take a look at a couple of examples on this board here. First, starting with this lovely pattern with the theme of Paris, and using the style of sketches or hand drawn illustration. So this is a seamless pattern using a standard grid here. If we pay attention to the repeated elements, we can notice the standout details like the Eiffel Tower, which we can see here. And then it repeats again down here. But we can also see a little bit of it here on the edges. So that is a good visual anchor for us to be able to identify the size of a tile. So I would say that the tile is roughly around here. So I'm just going to move this slightly up, and I believe this is roughly the tile that gets repeated both horizontally and vertically in this pattern. The way you can make sure that a seamless pattern looks interesting, even when it uses this standard grid, is to make sure that the edges of your tile are concealed or very hard to find. The easiest way to achieve that is to have things that are overlapping, so they are interrupting the edge of the tile. Like in this case, I believe these docks here are exactly placed on the edge of the tile. So they are not sitting perfectly within the tile, but they are divided between the two edges of the tile. And once we see the tiles as a seamless pattern, they will be joined together. Another useful thing to remember when you're designing patterns is to work with a sort of hierarchy within the elements of your patterns. What I mean is that you should have some standout elements that can be larger or higher in contrast compared to the rest of the elements. But you should have a lot of different smaller details that can easily act as a filler to make sure that the pattern doesn't have big holes or gaps inside it. So in this case, for instance, I would call these pots the standout details, or we can call them the hero elements, the cups. I would call secondary details together with a couple of larger items. But then there's also these tiny little elements like the flowers and the bags, which are more like fillers that I mentioned earlier. And the way you can achieve harmony within your pattern is by making sure that the same components or elements are not placed next to each other, so you wouldn't have the same exact detail multiple times in the same spot. Instead, you are using a visual rhythm, scattering them further apart from each other, and making sure that there is always variety between the elements. Notice how in one sentence I use pretty much all the terms that we covered so far in this topic. That just shows how connected these design principles are and how you have to rely on, not a single one, multiple rules and principles to achieve a pleasing result in your designs. As a final note, I just wanted to show these few images here on the end of the board, the patterns in nature. Which again, just proves that the reason why we find patterns appealing is because we are so accustomed to them seeing them all around us in the world. Whether it is the pattern of a spider B, or the beautiful radio symmetry in a snowflake, or even the hexagons in a beehive. Don't forget that nature is a great inspiration for coming up with great designs, not only when it comes to designing patterns. 13. Grouping: Grouping is another method used in graphic design to unify the elements in your compositions. It can be achieved in many different ways from placing your elements close to each other, mainly relying on their proximity or using holding devices or containers to keep them connected to each other. We can also use lines between objects to have them connected. Relying on the guest out principle, uniform connectedness, or using frames and division lines, creating common regions. Once again, another guest out principle, grouping the visual information in your compositions, especially if they are complex and there's a lot of elements. It is important because it helps the viewers to find the order in which they should receive the information. But also it can establish hierarchy in this video. Like always, we will be looking at some very creative examples of both graphic design compositions and illustrations, relying heavily on grouping. To start out, here is a great festival poster design where like always we have quite a lot of typographic details, where, first of all, we have all the names of the performers, but then we also see on which stage they will be performing. So when there's a lot of information to display, grouping becomes essential. Without it, this whole poster wouldn't really serve its purpose. Here's another example, the table of contents page from a magazine, and similarly to festival posters, usually on these pages. We also have a lot of information to display and it's also used for navigation within the magazine in this case and since in this particular magazine there's two main sections or categories of articles, one titled Fun and the other one titled Kids, and an additional smaller group which is appearing in every issue. Having these groups for viewers to find the articles they are interested in, further help finding their way around the magazine beyond simply just seeing the page numbers here. When it comes to menu design for restaurants and bars, it is also crucial to create groups because once again, we have quite a lot of information to display. And we want to make sure our viewers can find the relevant information as quickly as possible. Because there's nothing worse than struggling to find the right dishes when you are hungry. As I said before, grouping can be achieved in so many different ways, either by using actual frames to separate a certain part of information from the rest, or having a solid color background on a section, which again, makes it really stand out from the rest. Sometimes even a single line is enough to separate, in this case, the address and social media handles here at the bottom. Well, remember we talked about consistency, which is also a way to achieve unity in a design. Well, in this case, all the categories use the same type face and also the same size and color, even without using a division line here. Simply because we have these category titles here, we can already imagine this being a different group from this here on the top. So remember, when you have a lot of information that you need to display, you have to be very careful in the intensity of the groups that you create. Some groups might be more relevant than others, like in this case. I think this side section is the one that stands out the most. It almost jumps off the page because of the high contrast background color that's used on it. And it must be intentional because no matter what you order, most likely you will have some sides with it. And in terms of hierarchy of the groups, I would say the happy hour section is the one that comes second. And that's also important because most people would want to order drinks even if they are not ordering food. 14. Containers and Holding Devices: But let's take a step back now and look at a few examples. When there is much less information to display. Even in case of an illustration with no typography at all, grouping has a very crucial role to play. Now you might be wondering what is considered a group in this illustration because it's less obvious. But the same principles that we've seen in the previous, more complex examples is applied here as well to help the viewer understand what they are seeing and to help them read this illustration. So first of all, the colors used help us to see what's closer to us and what's further in the back. This way, these darker, bluish, greenish colors are used to establish and create the foreground in the illustration. Then these softer and warmer colors are used to establish the midground. And finally, the combination of a few other warm tones and the background color is used to establish the background with these three peaks here in the mountains. I love the way how these mountains blend into the background. And also the same thing happens here with the rabbit in the foreground. Remember when we talked about framing? This would be considered the margin for this illustration instead of the usual out of bounds effect, where the illustration would be covering up parts of the margin here, the opposite is happening and the margin is overlapping or bleeding into the illustration. The general shape of this rectangle here and the circle here on the top is also considered a way of grouping the illustration or the information within the illustration. Normally, these shapes that hold things together we would call a holding device or a container. And you will see many examples of this on this board. Like in this case, the letter D is the container or holding device that holds all the information within the illustration together. And the visual interest is created by all of these small details just ever so slightly crossing the edges or boundaries of the letter form. When it comes to logo design, it is also very common that we would use a holding device to hold things together. Like in this case we have an invisible circle. So it relies on the guest stop principle closure for us to imagine that there is a shape holding all of these vegetables together. While in these other two examples, we have actual circles and geometric shapes forming these holding devices. Even when you're just using two simple circles within a logo, it already helps to group things. Like in this case, we have this text here sitting between the two circles. That helps us to connect the text on the top and the text here on the bottom together. So we know that within the two circles, these two texts connect to each other. While the text set in a smaller size inside a second circle will immediately form a group with the other text in the same position. Here is another impactful design, relying on grouping or using a holding device, in this case is the first letter of the title of the movie, Valerian. All of the important characters and spaceships are combined and grouped together by using this single letter. And the business of this section here is nicely balanced out by using a lot of negative space on the right side and also a little bit here on the left. Of course, besides the main visual interest being grouped into this letter form, we also have two additional groups here. We have the text here on the top. And also another important group at the bottom, where we have the two main actors name, the title of the movie and the date when it was released. So don't forget to apply grouping in your designs, whether they are complex or simple, because it will always lead to a more united and aesthetically pleasing composition. 15. Conclusion: Congratulations on completing this course of the graphic design theory series. I hope you found it useful and inspiring. Don't forget to go through the glossary of terms, PDF, review everything we covered, and if you feel ready, take the quiz to test your knowledge. Come back any time to the references on the Miller Not Boards we use in this course to help you remember the things we talked about or to find inspiration for your next design project. Please let us know if you felt there was anything missing from this course or if you have any suggestions on how we can improve it. E mail us at Info at Sm Designer.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible. We really appreciate your input and help. Now it's time for you to pick your next topic and dive into another graphic design theory course. Remember, there is no right or wrong order to complete this series. All the rules we cover are equally important and everything is related. But what is most important is getting a good understanding of these rules and applying them in your projects. I'm sure you will use what you've learned to create something amazing, and I cannot wait to see it.