Emphasis is the most outstanding element in an entire design work. It is also known as the Focal Point.  Focal point is a method used in graphic design to draw the audiences’ attention at first glance.  It plays a very important role among all the elements in the design work to create a design flow of visual hierarchy.

There are various ways to create the emphasis, and they will be used depending on the specific scenario of the specific design.  Positions, sizes, shapes, directions, hues, saturations and special effects as well can all be the factors to make the elements the emphasis or not.  However, emphasis is always recommended to be used on the small amount of objects in the design work, while the rest of the elements will be the supporting emphasis, meaning secondary focal points, a.k.a. accents.  And others will just display as a background (or negative space as we discussed before).  Emphasize on few objects, otherwise, eyes will be distracted with too many elements competing with each other, as a result the design flow won’t be formed.  Flow can only be created with different weights of the elements, in the order from the most important to the least.  Emphasis is part of the flow, but can never take place of the flow.

Asymmetry graphic design, compare to symmetry design, looks more casual and thus get more interesting visual result.  However, as a designer, we should know that asymmetry design still needs visual balance and it’s even harder than keeping the balance for symmetry design, since to make different components in one design balance, we have to take all the visual factors including size, shape, values, contrast, distance, etc… into consideration.

I regard graphic design a form of art that people use to convey information and messages.  It can be called applied art.  Therefore, to create an active design, asymmetry is used much more often than symmetry method, due to the fact that asymmetry is more dynamic, flexible and alive.

In order to convey information, designer needs to create a flow in the design, through which the audience will be able to get the information.  Usually we put the catchiest component that we want the audience see at the first glance.  This is to get the attention from the audience to let them look into the design. This component can be an interesting image or some headline text.  To make it outstanding to catch the audience’s eyes, it has to be in the very dominant position of the design, say the center or near center place, and with high contrast to the background color.  The rest of the components will be either the supplementary of the headline or the details of the entire information.  Once the audience is reading your design, you have to let him read smoothly and comfortably. Then a flow of the components is really important. The information has to be in a flow, starting from the first eye catchy component.  You can place the components in the order by their size, contrast, saturation and distance to the center.  Say the most important information need a big size, high contrast and close to the dominant place, while the last information is usually least distinguished. They cannot be competing with each other or hiding from each other.  Audience needs a clear flow to avoid any kind of confusion.

This concept of message flow perfectly matches the asymmetry design method.  To achieve a balanced visual effect, the biggest (in terms of shape, color, value, etc.) item is placed closest to the center while smaller items are placed further from the center.  However, no matter what type of graphics we are creating, we should always keep in mind that all the components should look like they are placed in relationship with each other in stead of randomly distributed, because graphics is a form of art that conveys messages.

The business card of Shampoo Doll is a very good example of Asymmetry design. The design mainly consists two parts, the text of “Shampoo Dolls” in the center and the blue shampoo bottle at the bottom right corner. The magenta text in the center is the dominant part.  It has a very strong contrast with the blue background and stands out from this business card. I believe the designer of this card did it on purpose since the name of the business is most important information that they want to convey to the reader of the business card.  The graphic of a shampoo bottle as the second component in this designer is positioned at the corner of the card, with very similar blue of the background. The purpose of this component is to balance the text and to give the graphic message of the business to the readers.  Thus an interesting asymmetry design came to life.

Business card plays a very important role in representing a company and its employees, creating a brief and sometimes the first image of the company to its customers, and promoting the company to the market as well. There should be these elements on a business card – company identifier (usually the company’s logo, contact name (with title) and the contact info. How to organize these elements and put them in the right place with right font, color, weight, place, and with the right supporting graphic elements such as photos or artwork illustration, are what we need to take into consideration to make an appealing and information accessible business card.

Among the three elements, the company’s brand is usually the most important one to show on the card, since the biz card is intended to market the business and acquire customers. Therefore, to form a visual flow like all the other graphic design works, the company brand should be in the lead. This could be a compelling image of company logo or the bold font of company name. Just like the example of Apple business card, it uses its world-famous company logo on the left 2”x2” area with a big area of white space around. This is a very good usage of negative space – the very important info surrounded by a great amount of space makes the element look more outstanding. For the rest of the elements, normally the name of the contact will come to the next. The most common method is to make the font bold. Title, contact info are supposed to be at the end of the design flow with relatively smaller font, or lighter weight, etc.

Repetition with a certain amount of spaces creates rhythm in graphic design, due to the fact that repetition makes a pattern of consistency in the form of identical graphic elements including shape, style and color.  This design technique is very effective to unify and organize the entire creative piece, showing a clear flow in the design message and creating the sense and atmosphere of the graphic work.

However, too much repetition with too much identical elements can make the design to dull and too predictable to be stylish and appealing.  Repetition doesn’t necessarily to be copying elements exactly the same.   Variation can be a supporting and very important technique for repetition.  It can be variation in shape, size, position, color, etc, with which designers are able to create not only regular rhythm (repetition of identical elements), but also flowing rhythm (natural looking of movement) and progressive rhythm (a sequence of form to show the progression).  Space is also a very important factor supporting repetition to make great designs. The well adjusted space in between each repeated elements can create a sense of rhythm.  And again, they don’t have to the same amount of space, but rather spaces in the form of flowing as well as progressive rhythm.