Primaries of Design

Our Visual Language

Composition and the Art of Visual Communication

Computer binary code is based on patterns and series of 1’s and 0’s that convey words, color, music, movies and more.  Everything we store and see on our computers can be broken down into patterns of 1’s and 0’s.  Our DNA is also based on patterns of A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s.  Our whole beings and everything that defines our bodies make up and more is stored in our DNA all coded into patterns of A, C, G, and T’s.

Just as languages have their syntax and grammar, computers have their coding, and our DNA is coded along strands, and music has its structure, our Visual Language is comprised by its own elements and syntax.  When we understand these characteristics and their interrelationships we can become more visually expressive.

Whenever I have raised the questions of what is, what makes up, or what are the characteristics of composition in my classes, the response is usually a long pause followed by lists of rules that artists have followed throughout their development.  Rules they either read or were told as if they were divine truths. And the reasons for such rules, most often land on the vague or subjective notions that promise (if followed) will make your work more beautiful, balanced, or in some way correct. Along this same train of thought it may also be believed that in order to evolve as an artist we must first learn (the rules) and then at some point break them.  In short if we do as we are told we must first learn a series of rules before we are allowed to, or find reason to break them.  This not only sounds ridiculous, but this premise is suggesting our visual language has a structural grammar to be properly understood if marks are put down in prescribed manner.  But our Visual Language has no grammar.  Our ability to express ourselves clearly is neither dependent on rules, purely subjective alchemy, or to be left to the viewer to make sense of our work unless that is of our design.  

I would agree that during the process of composing an image there are many subjective decisions made by the artist.  And anyone viewing a piece of art is biased subjectively as well.  But when one wishes to communicate clearly to an audience in image or film, clarity of expression is critical.  Painting, film or any visual medium that relies on communication requires clarity in expression and execution.  In this case to we do not leave the understanding or interpretation of our work solely to the viewer’s judgment.  We are artists, visual communicators, the directors, designers and solely responsible for our work, we are context creators, not rule followers.  

Visual art possesses a complex system of communication, or language, and composition is the art of establishing a visual context, subject and statement. 

It is from this point of view that I suggest that expressing ourselves, moreover communicating our ideas, statements, or feelings depends firstly on establishing a visual context.  Any bias of relationships that come to bare within our compositions should be inspired by our image message, and executed through the context you establish through visual relationships that make up your composition.  The notion that there are standardized, universal rules required to achieve appeal or beauty in our visual language is not only ridiculously wrong but it stifles any possibility of variation of expression. 

1 Our visual language is comparative in nature

When we are successful in designing compositions that communicate or ideas clearly, we are successful in manipulating visual components by shifting emphasis in direct response to the image message. Our compositions are not merely the sum of the objects we render; rather they are designed about the interrelationships created between them. 

These choices should be purposeful to make clear your image message.  

So if we are to learn to become more visually literate we must learn to assess the outcomes of relative proportion and their simple to complex relationships, while also assessing their range of contrast.  The more specific we can be in identifying the visual elements that are playing active roles in our images, or compositions the better.  Then we can begin to assess their relationships in the appropriate manner, through their specific ranges of contrast, which is key to delivering the proper visual expression.  For instance value to value, shape to shape, color to color, even space to space.

Creating a composition is defining context

To visually communicate with clarity to the audience our images must frame the context of what we want to say, as well as contain the subject and subtext that allows the viewer to feel the full impact of our image message.  We should strive to learn what the masters knew and develop the ability to assess the cause and effect impact they gave us, and also the ability to assess the impact of our doings within the process of creating our own work.

At the Disney animation studio in 1938 Dave Hand lectured on the importance of developing visual assessment skills.  He cautioned that if we look at art and only ask if we like it or not then move on, we fail to assess the things within the image that are working and fail to grow.

"Know what the old masters did. Know how they composed their pictures, but do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were right for them, and they are wonderful. They made their language. You make yours. All the past can help you."

                                                                                                       Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

If we go back to our beginnings before we learned to read or do math we learned to recognize images and symbols in two different ways, pattern and value.  These are extremely important to us as artists and our visual language.  It is through this type of comparative recognition that we assess our visual components.  We are always looking for patterns and what is similar and different, that is fundamental.  But relative value is completely determined by the artist through many variations of dominance and subordination.  For no shape, color, line, or space has inherent value.  The value of presence of any element or application is up to the image creator.

Our visual language is comprised of seven basic visual elements, interpreted through, and biased by three primaries of design (a dynamic triad), along with a multidimensional measuring system to establish quantify values of relationships. This establishes the “Goldilocks effect” between a finite number of elements to create infinite patterns and variants and a method of determining complex and infinite relative value relationships between these patterns and variants that allow the artist, photographer, image, or film maker their voice, and potential for personal expression in one universal language of visual art.  

Figure-Ground Relationship

Composition begins with the relationship between figure and ground.  This consists of making clear the division of object and its surround.  As artists, art directors, or visual communicators of any kind we need to move beyond relying on intuition alone, or a vague understanding of composing pictures.  We need to study composition and visual literacy in order to take the guesswork out of design.  

Lets first look at the most basic element of composition, the figure-ground relationship.  In the diagram below our figure is a circle on a square ground.  The circles scale and position within the frame (or ground) can offer a lot of graphic information. But in this case it appears static because of its position being directly in the center.

Figure and Ground

Question: What visual message would you say is being conveyed by the graphic condition of this circle on this ground?

Answer: Static or Neutral, possibly formal or immovable

By just the scale and position of the circle within a square we begin to tell a story.

There is a good chance that you arrived at the same or very similar answers to the visual conditions illustrated above.  In this exercise (since the shape of the figure and format of the ground are the same)  there are two relationships between figure and ground that are active, scale and position.  Here is why these circles express what the do.

Moving:  The closeness of the circle to the one side creates a visual tension.  Our eyes move more slowly around the circle in the more open areas, but in the narrow space between the circle and side our eyes scan the image faster.  This quickening creates a pulling sensation.

Close:  Figures closer to the bottom of the frame appear to be closer than those higher in the frame. 
This can go way back to possibly before ancient scrolls long before perspective, if we consider our cone of vision, as we perceive the world things at the bottom of our cone of vision are almost always closer than anything else.

Big:  Large, filling the frame.

Far:  Higher the frame and smaller make the circle appear much farther away than the next one.

Small:  It's size is obvious but being close to the bottom of the frame says this circle is also close and that would reinforce the effect.

Raising:  Partially cropped anywhere along the top of the frame would give this effect.  having moderate scale allows it to have more volume and adds to the spatial closeness.

Falling:  Cropped along the bottom somewhere will reinforce this feeling.

Heavy:  Larger scale adds to the feeling of volume and resting on the bottom of the frame makes it feel like it is sitting literally on the ground.

Light:  Positioning this moderate sized circle above center can add to the feeling of lightness.  This can also have the feeling of farther away than it's neighbor (heavy).

Dominant and Subordinate

In these limited exercises we explore ways to bring dominance to one circle among many.  Though it is just a model, the fact that it is limited is key to our understanding. 

There are a couple ways to direct the viewers eye using shapes, space, tone, color, and rhythm within the subtext of you images.

 Similar exercises or models could be contrived to explore dominance to subordinate expressions using any of our visual elements discretely.  It is important to note that creating dominance with one visual element is just a contributing factor to the total image.  If color, or value is added to the circle and ground format you could either enhance the initial outcome or completely diffuse it.  This means all of our visual elements work in contradistinction with one another and have influence on the others.

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Visual Components

These are the most basic components that are distinct from one another and make up the visual elements we have to work with.  Some of you may be more familiar with or had been taught that values, shapes, and edges are the most important components, but these are aspects of the components listed below.  These components also have various applications or sub characters and are more discrete which we will get into through out the weeks.

1.    Line: implied lines, closure, eye lines, tracking lines

2.    Shape: emotional implications, directional forces

3.    Space: flat, limited, deep, ambiguous, cubist

3.    Tone: value, value grouping, counterchange-impact on space

5.    Color: emotional, spatial, narrative applications, theory (7 contrasts)

6.    Rhythm: contours, gradients, near alignments, closure, directional forces

7.    Movement: (in film) Direction and Dot (for painting and film)

Primary Elements of Design

·      Line:  texture, marks that define the surface, whose characteristics appear to express neither mass or form)

·      Notan: Mass - Light vs Dark

·      Chiaroscuro: Form – Light vs Shadow

Methods of Measure

·      Major Key (proportion)

·      Minor Key (range of contrast within the image or area of the image)

    Dominant and Subordinate are conditions created through the juxtaposition of the visual elements that make up any composition.




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