Elements & Principles of Design

• Line - Lines are defined by points moving in space. It can create a sense of movement or direction in your design. Line is can be smooth, rough, straight, curve, broken, thick or thin.
• Shape - A shape is an enclosed space, the boundaries of which are defined by other elements of art like lines, colors, values or textures. Shapes can be used to create patterns and draw the viewer's attention.
• Direction - Applying motion to create the visual illusion of movement. Use horizontal direction for calmness, stability and tranquility while vertical direction for emotions of balance, formality and alertness.
• Size (Scale) - Size is basically the relationship of the area occupied by one shape to that of another. Large elements mean more significant than the small one.
• Texture - Texture refers to surface appearance of an object given by the dimensions, form, thickness, arrangement, and amount of its basic parts.
• Balance - in design is the state of equal relationship. It means equal distribution of visual weight in a design. It
• Symmetrical balance - occurs when identical weights are on equal sides of a composition
• Asymmetrical balance - occurs when a design has unequal graphic weight on either side, but those unequal graphics need to balance each other (un-evenly balanced).
• Radial balance - occurs when the design elements swirl out from a central axis (emanating from a central point)
• Proximity - maintains a relationship between items that go together. It helps creates organization by grouping the same elements together or in close proximity.
• Alignment - refers to lining up the elements of a design along the top, bottom, center or sides of the elements. It allows us to create order and organization in our design.
• Repetition, Pattern, And Rhythm - Repetition duplicates the characteristics of similar elements to contribute to design consistency.
• Contrast - Contrast refers to the use of conflicting elements or colors while still remaining harmonious and unified when the artwork is viewed as a whole.
• Space - It refers to the area that an object occupies. Both positive and negative space should be considered in graphic design
• Micro white space - is usually used in paragraphs to improve the content legibility and help the viewer to read faster the text with better comprehension thanks to adding margins to it as if the text goes outside the paragraph' it will make it harder to read for the viewer.
• Macro white space - refers to the space between bigger graphic elements of the design composition as text columns and graphics.
• Unlike Micro White Space, macro white space acts like a big picture white space helping as a container of the overall design as it is used as a major design layout element to emphasize different parts of the design composition
• Active White Space - refers to the space added in a design layout intentionally to create more focus on specific parts of the design or content from the design.
• Passive White Space - white space is to increase readability and comprehension of the design.
• Infographic - The term Information graphic or Infographic is a photographic presentation of data and information that use the different elements of design to make data easily understandable at a glance.
• Photo editing and designing software allow you to manipulate or edit images. In order to perform image manipulation, you need to have basic knowledge of image editing operations such as cutting, cropping, replacing and more.
• Image file format - refers to how data associated to the image will be stored. It can be compressed to decrease file size of the image.
• Lossy compression - reduces file size by removing redundant information means that some data from the image file is lost.
• Lossless compression - retains values and manages to lower file size.
• Image resolution - refers to the number of pixels in an image or the detail an image holds. It is identified by the height and the width of the image.
• Pixel- Just one unit of the whole digital image- It is the smallest unit of an image.- The higher the resolution, means that theremore pixels per inch (PPI), resulting in more pixel information and creating a high-quality, crisp image.
• Website - a set of related resources from the web. These resources were considered as web pages and multimedia (e.g.: videos, music, images).
• A platform-enabled website or online platform gives a feature on which allows you to manipulate the content of the website.
• Social Media Platforms- This platform allows you to create your personal account or profile. - Enables you to connect yourself to other users and get updates on their news feed.
• Blogging Platforms- A platform on where a writer or even a group of writers can share views on an individual subject.- It is comparable to a newsletter where you can add menus, designs or even multimedia of a subject.
• Content Management System or CMS- One of the features of this platform is that you can publish your own website and manage its content through internet or in a single computer.
• Web hosting - an online service that allows you to publish your website files onto the internet.- Anyone who has access to the internet has access to your website. In practice, it usually refers to the service you get from a web hosting provider.
• Domain name - a string of text that maps to a numeric IP address, used to access a website from client software.
• The actual address of a website is a complex numerical IP address (e.g., 103.21.244.0), but thanks to DNS, users are able to enter human- friendly domain names and be routed to the websites they are looking for. This process is known as a DNS lookup.
• Domain names are all managed by domain registries, which delegate the reservation of domain names to registrars.
• A uniform resource locator (URL), sometimes called a web address, contains the domain name of a site as well as other information, including the transfer protocol and the path.
• Domain names are typically broken up into two or three parts, each separated by a dot. When read right-to-left, the identifiers in domain names go from most general to most specific.
• The section to the right of the last dot in a domain name is the top-level domain (TLD). e.g. .net, .com, .org, country-specific TLDs: .jp or .uk
• To the left of the TLD is the second-level domain (2LD) and if there is anything to the left of the 2LD, it is called the third-level domain (3LD). Google - second-level domain (2LD); .com - top level domain (TLD)
• Text - this is a mandatory element of a web page.