Lesson Info
11. Principle Scale and Balance
Lessons
Class Introduction
09:43 2Why Design Matters
09:34 3Design vs. Aesthetic
09:46 4Impact of Design
11:01 5The Design Process: Understand Your Audience
10:07 6The Design Process: Understand Your Content
12:22 7Design Principle: Alignment, Grids, and Spacing
14:30 8Design Principles: Contrast
06:13Design Principles: Repetition
08:25 10Design Principle: Hierarchy & Proximity
13:44 11Principle Scale and Balance
03:54 12Design Principles: Typography
08:32 13Design Principles: White Space
05:22 14Design Principles: Color
08:48 15Design Principles: Graphics, Icons, and Photos
05:56 16Design Principles: Layouts and Focal Points
04:08 17Design Principles: Color-Blind Accessibility in Design
02:32 18Example: Resume Design
26:18 19Example: Social Media Post Design
14:20 20Example: Presentation Design
23:55 21Example: Charts and Spreadsheets Design
16:02 22Example: Email Signature Design
14:18Lesson Info
Principle Scale and Balance
Balance is all about weight. And we all remember back to physics class, when you learned about balance. And in order to create balance, what do we need to do? We need to put another thing of equal weight over here. That's the only way to create balance. Now if we have two circles like this, what happens with these circles? Well, they're unbalanced, this is not reality. In order for these to balance, what do we need to do? We need to move that circle a little further in so that it's actually balanced. So why is this important? Because balance in design can really help create stability. It can help create emotion. It can help things be emphasized in a design. So let's look at our cupcake business card. And think about the balance here. So let's put it on a, I don't even know what this thing is called, a balancing apparatus. That's what it is now. And we look at it and we think to ourself, is this balanced? What do you think? It feels balanced, right? But what about this one? If we look a...
t it, it's not very balanced, because a lot of the information is all at the left. And is this a terrible business card? No, it's not the worst. But there is such a dramatic difference when you are looking at them side-by-side. One of them has all the information over at the left. This one is a lot more balanced. And when you apply this principle to something like a brochure that has even more information, or a website homepage, or a poster, or something like that, this becomes very important. You wanna make sure that your designs are really, really, really balanced. So looking at that brochure we had made earlier, is this balanced? To me it feels pretty balanced, why? Because even though we have a lot of text over here, whenever you kind of zone them out, which is not a very technical term, but that's what I like to say, it feels balanced. Because if you look at kind of the real estate on the page that's being taken up, they're equal, or relatively equal. Whereas on this one, is this pleasing? Can we get all the information we need to get? We can, but automatically, because all the information is over at the left, like we're focused all over here. So we wanna keep in mind that we're using balance to create equal focus in order to not overwhelm people with information, and make sure that they're taking away the message from whatever we are trying to communicate. So now we're gonna move into the five design elements, after we recap the design principles. So you learned about alignment. We learned about contrast. We learned about repetition, which is not bad, especially helpful in our very fast-paced world today, helping people remember you, especially if you're a brand. You know why hierarchy is so important, and why we need that in order to not force people to think when they're looking at whatever we have created. And then why balance is so important.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
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Ratings and Reviews
Natalie Santana
I wish more people knew, appreciated, and respected the content Sarah covers in this course. Design is such a critical piece of the functionality of the tools we use every day but its often disregarded as "fluff" or just "aesthetic". Sarah does an outstanding job of establishing the importance and methodology of design for beginners. I would recommend this course to literally everyone.
Britt
Definitely recommend! This course is aimed towards people who don't make a living as a designer but are exposed to it in everyday life—even if they're unaware. Your resume? Design. Your social media posts? Design. Your spreadsheets? Yep, design. Sarah does an awesome job giving an overview about what design is and actionable things you can do to improve. The "live design" portion is awesome and it's where she re-designs/improves documents, mostly on the fly. She goes through her thought process so viewers can learn to think like a visual designer. I would definitely enroll in another class, especially if she chose to focus more in-depth on a few design principles for the entire class.
Jorge Martinez
Awesome Class! highly recommend.