Esslinger's Classes at Kenyon College
  • Introduction
  • Digital Imaging
    • Abstract Formalism
    • Experimental Collage >
      • Skill Sets
    • The Altered Portrait
    • The Altered Scape >
      • Exhibition Design
      • Digital Experimentation
      • Fictitious Advertising
    • Soundscape
    • Gesture >
      • Aesthetics of the Ordinary
    • Final Projects
  • Video
    • Stop-Motion Animation >
      • STOP MOTION FESTIVAL 2020
    • Exp. Film and Video >
      • Lyrical Juxtapositions
      • Artist Presentation
      • AppropriationSocialComment
      • Personal Experimental
      • Expanded Cinema
  • Installation
  • Advanced Studio
  • Links
    • Artists and Info >
      • Miscellaneous
      • assignment presentations
      • Creative preparations
      • Video
      • Experimental Film
      • Sound
      • Animation
      • Photo
      • Cinemagraphs
      • New Media >
        • Notes New Media
      • Installation
      • Design/Anti
      • Web based
      • General Art
      • Performance
      • Painting/Drawing/Prints
      • Paper/ Fiber/Books
      • Sculpture
      • architecture
      • Research >
        • Makerspace at Kenyon
        • tech research
      • Student Presentations >
        • student research video artists
        • Student Presentations Installation
        • Themes of Contemporary Art
      • Alumni
    • Manuals >
      • Scanning
      • Lightroom
      • Photoshop
      • Premiere Pro CC >
        • New Premiere Pro Video Tutorials
      • After Effects
      • Davinci Resolve
      • InDesign >
        • InDesign Video Tutorials
      • Fonts
      • Animation
      • New Media Programs >
        • manuals from others
      • Audio
      • Lighting
      • Cameras+Equipment
      • Sculptural Processes
      • AHistoryofArtandTechnology for Digital Imaging
      • A History of Art andTechnology for Video and Film
      • professional presentations
      • Rome Home >
        • Experimental Media in the Eternal City >
          • Questions Venice
        • Simulations: Public Art in the Imagination in Rome >
          • External recordings
        • Adventures
Elements and Principles of Composition/Design

Elements: The basic tools used to create imagery
            • Line
            • Shape
            • Value
            • Texture
            • Color
            • Scale

Principles of Organization: How to organize the elements within a chosen space.

o Emphasis/Focal Point: There are ways to create visual weight in an image,
thus drawing one’s attention to one area or another, depending on the
amount of emphasis
  • By Contrast of Visual Elements:
                    Line, shape, value, color, texture, scale
                    Organic vs. Geometric,
                    Abstracted or Representational
  •     By Placement
  •     By Isolation
  •     Degree of Emphasis
  •     Absence of Focal Point

o Unity/Harmony: Congruity of agreement of elements
  • Repetition of elements (shape, color, etc)
  • Proximity (Grouping)
  • Continuation
  • Linkage (Through overarching structure such as grids)
  • With variety

o Balance: How the visual weight is distributed to activate the whole.
  • Symmetrical (Same or similar elements on either side of an axis
  • Asymmetrical (Dissimilar elements on either side of an axis
                Color
                Value
                Shape
                Texture and Pattern
                Position
  • Crystallographic (overall equal visual weight)
  • Radial (equal weight both vertically and horizontally

o Rhythm: Movement of eye across recurrent motifs, based on repetition
and strength of focal points

o Figure Ground relationships (using positive and negative space equally
important)

o Open/Closed Composition