Design Terms
When you are designing and creating your artwork, you will be making choices along the way about how you want it to look. As you explore, you are going to see qualities that you appreciate. This list of terms has been assembled so that you have the words to describe the properties that apply to your artwork.
Aspects of lines and curves:
What properties might lines and curves have? Here is a handy resource for artistic terms and when to use them. There's a healthy dose of mathematical terms too!
- Orientation: horizontal, vertical, diagonal
- Behavior: straight line, smooth curve, squiggly, zigzag, spiral, meandering
- Curve interaction: intersecting, nonintersecting, parallel, perpendicular, tangent, asymptotic, intertwining, overlapping
- length, spacing, bunched, spaced out, short, long, thick, thin
- Symmetry: symmetric, asymmetric,
- flat, three dimensional, depth, vanishing point
- continuous, broken, implied, interrupted, dashed, dotted
Elements of Art:
A nice resource: The Seven Elements of Art.
- Line
- Shape: geometric, organic, nebulous, amorphous, open, closed,
- Form: heavy, light
- Space: positive space, negative space, white space, background, foreground, two-dimensional, three-dimensional
- Value: dark, light, cross-hatching, stipple, shading, blurred
- Color: warm, cold, dull, vibrant, monochromatic, tinted, multicolored, contrasting, complementary, primary, secondary
- Texture:
Principles of Design
A nice resource: The Principles of Design from the Getty Museum.
- Balance:
- Emphasis:
- Movement:
- Pattern:
- Repetition:
- Proportion:
- Rhythm:
- Variety:
- Unity:
- Filling: ,