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Building Blocks: Elements and Principles

Regardless of your area of emphasis, whether it be Interior Design, Illustration, Fashion, Game arts etc, the approach or visual language used to describe what you create uses the same building blocks, the elements and principles of design.

Think of the elements and principles of design like you would think about the alphabet, vocabulary, grammar, that you use to communicate through writing or speaking - but in this case instead of words and sentences the building blocks are put together in different combinations to express an idea, image, design, or space.

We use ELEMENTS of design in conjunction with PRINCIPLES of design, to present to audience our concepts, ideas, creations.

Let’s list some of the elements and principles. Then, we can see how they work together in any media, from Film, and illustration to Interior Design and Animation.

ELEMENTS

PRINCIPLES