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Copyright © 1999 by Bonnie Skaalid |
To understand balance, think of the balance beam. When objects are of equal weight, they are in balance. If you have several small items on one side, they can be balanced by a large object on the other side. Screen balance works in much the same way. It can be affected not only by the size of objects, but also their value (ie. lightness or darkness, termed visual weight). Formal or Informal BalanceFormal balance is symmetrical, with the items on one side of the screen being similar in shape, size and color to the items on the other side of the screen. Formal balance is usually much easier to design - Check the photograph below, which is the Rotunda, Music Room , Halifax, 1794 from John Bland's Canadian Architexture Collection. Notice the symmetry of the house - even the wings on either end are balanced.  Informal balance is usually asymmetrical, with several smaller items on one side being balanced by a large item on the other side, or smaller items being placed further away from the center of the screen than larger items. One darker item may need to be balanced by several lighter items. (A more extensive description of ways to create informal balance is found in the section on classic graphic design balance) When a screen is not balanced, it creates a feeling of tension, as if the screen might tip, or things might slide off the side, just as the unbalanced beam would tip to one side. As Mullet and Sano [1] discuss, many 20th Century typographic designers "discovered the greater vitality and inherent visual interest provided by active, asymmetric layouts"(p. 103). But they caution that creating asymmetric layouts is much more difficult to do, and depends on careful placement to compensate for the differences in size, position and value of the major elements of a design.
[1] Mullet, K. & Sano, D. (1995). Designing visual interfaces: Communication oriented techniques. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
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