Design

Design is a purposeful, systematic, and creative activity.

The process is purposeful—designers give form to products, interiors, and visual communications, and satisfy the functional, psychological, and aesthetic needs of users.

Design is systematic, as it involves the analysis of problems in our physical environment, and the transformation of findings into appropriate and usable solutions.

Design is also creative, as designers must possess the expertise to create compelling visual forms for products, spaces, and information systems, and to advance applications of new technologies in our everyday lives.

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design Both the process and the result of structuring elements of visual form.

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analysis Identifying and examining separate parts as they function independently and together in creative works and studies of the visual arts.

balance Balance is a feeling of equality in weight, attention, or attraction of various elements within an artwork as a means of unifying a composition. May be described as symmetrical or asymmetrical.

composition The organization of the formal elements in a work of art.

conceptual art An art form in which the idea behind the work and the process of its making are more important than the final product.

content The meaning of an image, beyond its overt subject matter, including the emotional, intellectual, symbolic, thematic, and narrative connotations.

context A set of interrelated conditions (such as social, economic, political) in the visual arts that influence and give meaning to the development and reception of thoughts, ideas, or concepts, and that define specific cultures and eras.

contrast Differences in values, colors, shape, texture (e.g., dark, medium, light; or large, medium, small; or rough, smooth).

elements of design The component parts of art. The elements help define what principles are; there cannot be a principle without an element. The elements do not occur in isolation but one can be dominant. The elements give the artist a vocabulary to use to help explain art--line, shape, color, value, texture, space/form.

emphasis The principle of visual organization that suggests that certain elements should assume more importance (dominance) than others in the same composition. Dominance contributes to unity because one main idea or feature is emphasized and other elements are subordinate to it.

expression In visual arts, a process of conveying ideas, feelings, and meanings through selective use of the communicative possibilities.

figure-ground relationship In a two-dimensional work, the relationship between a form or figure and its background.

focal point A radial type of balance. It occurs when two or more identical elements are distributed around a center point to create a repetitive equilibrium.

foreshortening The use of perspective to represent the apparent visual contraction of an object or figure that extends backwards from the picture plane at an angle approaching the perpendicular.

form In visual arts, a) the literal shape and mass of an object or figure; b) more generally, the materials used to make a work of art, the ways in which these materials are utilized in terms of the formal elements (line, light, color, etc.), and the composition that results.

format Basic layout or proportions of a work being presented.

harmony The related qualities of the visual elements of a composition. Harmony is achieved by repetition of characteristics that are the same or similar.

harmony The related qualities of the visual elements of a composition. Harmony is achieved by repetition of characteristics that are the same or similar.

hue A color, usually one of the six basic colors of the spectrum--the three primary colors of red, yellow, and blue, and the three secondary colors of green, orange, and violet.

intensity The relative purity of a color's hue, and a function of its relative brightness or dullness; also known as saturation.

intention What the artist means to convey in a work of art, as opposed, for instance, to the way the work is interpreted.

intermediate colors The range of colors on the color wheel between each primary color and its neighboring secondary colors; yellow-green, for example.

key The relative lightness or darkness of a picture or the colors employed in it.

kitsch Sentimental, slick, and mass-produced art designed to appeal to the widest possible popular audience.

line The actual or implied connection between two points. Line creates a visual path of action, our eyes tend to follow lines. Line defines the edge and shape two dimensionally. Line has different qualities--thick, thin, light, dark, long, short, and broken. Line can create directional effects. Lines grouped together make patterns and textures. Lines define the contour of shape by moving in and out, back and forth.

monochromatic A color scheme limited to variations of one hue. A hue with its tints and/or shades

narrative art A temporal form of art that tells a story.

naturalistic Synonymous with representational; descriptive of any work that resembles the natural world.

nave The central part of a church, running from the entrance to the choir.

negative shape A background shape produced by its interaction with foreground or figure shape(s).

negative space Empty space, surrounded and shaped so that it acquires a sense of volume or form.

neutral color A color not associated with any single hue. A neutral can be made by mixing complementary hues

nonobjective art Art that makes no reference to the natural world and that explores the inherent expressive or aesthetic potential of the formal elements--line, shape, color--and the formal compositional principles of a given medium. Also see nonrepresentational.

objective As opposed to subjective, free of personal feelings or emotion; hence, without bias.

open form A form whose contour is irregular or broken, having a sense of unfinished growth.

optical or perceptual color The color as perceived by the eye, changed by the effects of light and atmosphere, in the way, for instance, that distant mountains appear to be blue.

perception Visual and sensory awareness, discrimination, and integration of impressions, conditions, and relationships with regard to objects, images, and feelings.

perceptual line Any line that is perceived but not actually drawn, such as a horizon line.

perspective A formula for projecting the illusion of three-dimensional space onto a two-dimensional surface. See also linear perspective, one-point linear perspective, two-point linear perspective, and atmospheric perspective.

pictorial space The implied or illusory space in a painting or other two-dimensional work as it appears to recede backward from the picture plane.

primary colors The hues that in theory cannot be created from a mixture of other hues and from which all other hues are created--namely, in pigment, red, yellow, and blue; and in light, red-orange, green, and blue-violet.

principles of design Organize and give order to the elements of design and can be used to describe the visual qualities of an artwork. Balance, focal point, proportion, rhythm, emphasis, harmony, variety and unity.

process A complex operation involving a number of methods or techniques, such as the addition and subtraction processes in sculpture, the etching and intaglio processes in printmaking, or the casting or constructing processes in making jewelry.

proportion In any composition, the comparison and relationship of the parts to each other and to the whole. Proportion can be expressed in terms of a definite ratio, such as "twice as big," or be expressed by "darker than," "more neutral than," or "more important than."

repetition (pattern) An art element repeated over and over.

representational art Any work of art that seeks to resemble the world of natural appearance.

rhythm A continuance, a flow, or a feeling of movement achieved by repetition of regulated visual units, the use of measure accents, that directs the eye through a composition.

scale The comparative size of a thing in relation to another like thing or its "normal" or "expected" size.

secondary colors A hue created by combining two primary colors; in pigment, the secondary colors are traditionally considered to be orange, green, and blue; in light, they are yellow, magenta, and cyan.

shade A color or hue modified by the addition of another color resulting in a hue of lower key or value, in the way, for instance, that the addition of black to red results in maroon.

shape A defined area. Two-dimensional shapes are areas that stand apart or out from the space around them because of a definite boundary or difference of value, color, or texture. Shapes may be geometric, organic, or composite. There are positive and negative shapes which together can be referred to as a "figure-ground relationship." A figure-ground reversal occurs when the eye switches from seeing a shape as foreground and sees it instead as background.

spectrum The colored bands of visible light created when sunlight passes through a prism.

still life A work of art that consists of an arrangement of inanimate objects, such as flowers, fruit, and household objects.

style A distinctive or characteristic manner. Any constant, recurring, or conventional manner of treatment or execution of works of art that is characteristic of a particular civilization, time period, artistic movement, or individual artist.

structures Means of organizing the components of a work into a cohesive and meaningful whole, such as sensory qualities, organizational principles, expressive features, and functions of art.

subject matter The literal, visible image in a work of art, as distinguished from its content, which includes the connotative, symbolic, and suggestive aspects of the image.

subjective As opposed to objective, full of personal emotions and feelings.

sublime That which impresses the mind with a sense of grandeur and power, inspiring a sense of awe.

subtractive 1) In color, the adjective used to describe the fact that, when different hues of colored pigment are combined, the resulting mixture is lower in key than the original hues and duller as well, and as more and more hues are added, the resulting mixture is closer and closer to black.

Surrealism A style of art of the early 20th century that emphasized dream imagery, chance operations, and rapid, thoughtless forms of notation that expressed, it was felt, the unconscious mind.

symbol An image, sign, or element, such as a color, that is understood, by convention or context, to suggest some other meaning.

symmetry When two halves of a composition correspond to one another in terms of size, shape, and placement of forms. Symmetrical (bilateral) balance is a form of balance achieved by the use of identical compositional units on either side of a vertical axis.

techniques Specific methods or approaches used in a larger process; for example, graduation of value or hue in painting or conveying linear perspective through overlapping, shading, or varying size or color.

texture The actual tactile characteristics of a thing, or the visual simulation of such characteristics.

three-dimensional space Any space that possesses height, width, and depth.

tint A color or hue modified by the addition of another color resulting in a hue of higher key or value, in the way, for instance, that the addition of white to red results in pink.

tools Instruments and equipment used by students to create and learn about art, such as brushes, scissors, brayers, easels, knives, kilns, and cameras.

two-dimensional space Any space that is flat, possessing height and width, but no depth, such as a piece of drawing paper or a canvas.

two-point linear perspective A version of linear perspective in which there are two (or more) vanishing points in the composition.

unity A sense of wholeness in a work of art, all parts working together.

value The range of light and dark on a shape or form or in an entire space. Value is the amount of lightness or darkness in a color. Red when lightened by white is called pink but is actually a light red. When gray or green is added to red it is darkened and we may call it maroon. Pink and maroon are thus light and dark values of red.

vanishing point In linear perspective, the point on the horizon line where parallel lines appear to converge.

variety The use of opposing, contrasting, changing, elaborating, or diversifying elements in a composition to add interest and individualism. The counterweight to harmony in a work of art.

video art An art form that employs television as its medium.

virtual reality An artificial three-dimensionalenvironment, generated through the use of computers, that the viewer experiences as real space.

visual arts A broad category that includes the traditional fine arts such as drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture; communication and design arts such as film, television, graphics, product design; architecture and environmental arts such as urban, interior, and landscape design; folk arts; and works of art such as ceramics, fibers, jewelry, works in wood, paper, and other materials.

visualization The forming of a mental image or images, particularly visual images, either of objects real and present or of things imagined.

warm colors Colors whose relative visual temperature makes them seem warm. Generally warm colors or hues include red-violet, red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, and yellow.