Balanced design
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Balanced design is used mainly by engineers or designers but in broad sense also by managers and by anybody who creates visual output. To create successful design usually are used: intuition, heuristics and scientific knowledge. Some basic rules which people often use intuitively are: balancing visual weight, playing with simetry, the focal point, proportions and disproportions[1]. Flemisch F. O. notices that to reach balanced design, sometimes it is important to connect opposite perspectives, for example[2]:
- technologic orientation versus human centred,
- constructive versus critical,
- intuitive versus analytical,
- quantitative or qualitative.
Basic rules of balanced design
Draze D. recommends to use below in achieving the proper balance[3]:
- Types of balance - there are two types of balancing which might be used: simetrical so that on the both sides of middle vertical line design looks like in the mirror or asimetrical so that the both elements seems to have the same weight.
- The visual weight - darker and larger things are perspected as heaveier than smaller and lighter elements. The weight is also affected by size, color, texture and form. The heavy element on one side of the design should be balanced by another element on the other side with something of similar visual weight.
- The focal point - the goal of focal point is to make some part more noticeable by bigger size, many colors, bolds or adding space around the focal point element. The focal point is something that catches the eye of the viewer for example large headline, colorful part, picture.
- Proportions and disproportion - it is generally advised to use proportion in designing but sometimes when some element should focus the attention, there might be use disproportion instead.
Areas of using balanced design
The balanced design may refer to many areas, some examples are below[4][5][6]:
- Advertisement. In advertisement especially the focal point is important which will draw the attention of viewer.
- Documentation. Balanced design might be used in designing documents. Within one page, the visual weight should be balanced as well. It is not about having elements of page centered but rather about amount of types of data and sizes of pictures, both taking into account horizontal and vertical distances. Elements of page that might be balanced are: headlines, border color, text, photos and logo.
- Constructions. For example, in choosing block sizes.
- Logo. Should be simplified, clean, with basic shape, not detailed and symbolic.
- Systems. For example, human - machine systems balancing advanced engineering areas.
Author: Anita Bernacka
Footnotes
References
- Arunachalam R., Sivasubramanian M., Ghosh D. K. (2016), Construction of Efficiency-Balanced Design Using Factorial Design in "Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods", Vol. 15, Iss. 1, Article 13
- Flemisch F. O., Schindler J., Kelsch J., Schieben A. (2008), Some Bridging Methods towards a Balanced Design of Human-Machine Systems, Applied to Highly Automated Vehicles , Applied Ergonomics International Conference, USA
- Gupta A, K., Kabe D. G. (2013), Design and Analysis of Experiments, World Scientific Publishing Company, USA* Draze D., Palouda A. (2005), Design Studio: Integrating Art & Thinking, Prufrock Press Inc., USA
- Sibley T. Q. (2015), Thinking Geometrically: A Survey of Geometries, The Mathematical Association of America, USA
- Stern A. D. (2014), Balanced Design in Information Systems Security Planning, The Proceedings of the International Conference in Information Security and Digital Forensics, Greece
