GIU Day Five - Design Principles

*sniff* here we are, my last day as the GIU gal. I'm also wrapping up my design principle series. There are plenty more, but I only had five days, so you I brought you the ones I think about most when in my creative space; whether it be creating cards, layouts, or a crafting a photo.

Today I am going to tackle flow. Flow simply means the way that your eye travels through an art piece. Now here in the Western World, we are trained to read from left to right, top to bottom. It's how our printed materials are laid out, so it's how we view art. There are a number of ways to help your view move through your artwork, but I'll look at two.

Left to right, top to bottom:

Like I said above, this is how we read, so this is the first way our eyes are going to think to move. Another way to think about this is our eyes are moving at a diagonal. Diagonal lines are something I always look for in a photo composition because I find it much more interesting than a straight line across and it causes your viewer to linger longer. I hope you can see this theme that runs through the whole week. You've invested time and heart energy into what you create and you want people to linger and enjoy, not just sweep through and be on to the next thing. To move simply from left to right or right to left, in the center, does just that. The eye just sweeps through and the brain moves on. By creating this diagonal line, you're inviting the view to take their time and enjoy.

You Are Forever Beautiful, Blossoming Beauty

Z line:

Creating a Z through your work, you're inviting your viewer to linger even longer, but still having order in your piece. An example of this is to begin at the top left, move to top right, swoop down to the bottom left and then end up at the bottom right. You see how much longer it takes to move through, using a Z line? My Z starts with the clouds on the left, moves to the cloud on the right, picks up at the bird and flower, follows down the mouse, and finishes along the grass.

Country Mouse Hello, Sending Up Something Beautiful

I hope you have enjoyed this peek into what goes through my brain as I work and maybe even find it useful when you create too. It's been nice really thinking about why I do what I do and researching the why. Our brains are so cool and I love learning more all the time.

Be sure to comment for your chance at some deeply etched red rubber of your very own. And while you're at it, subscribe to this blog so you can keep up with what is going on in my craft room. Thanks for joining me, I've really enjoyed being with you!

Until next time, happy stamping.