Principles of Design

• Design is the overall visual structure

of a work of art. It is means by which
the artist makes comprehensible the
ideas he wishes to express and
communicate.
 Harmony
• is one of the important principles of
design. in the visual arts, it refers to
the adaption of the visual elements to
each other, the agreement between
the parts of a composition which
result to unity.
 Variety
• Variation in nature is infinite. the
varying colors of flowers, the
variations of greens of grasses and
leaves, or the contrast of the dry and
rainy seasons prevent utter uniformity
and monotony in the environment of
a man.
 Rhythm
• Rhythmical patterns exist in nature.
There is rhythm in the tide created by
the alternating ebb and flow, just as
there is rhythm in man's heartbeat.
• In the visual arts, rhythm is a
continuance, a flow, or a feeling of
movement achieved by the repitition of
regular visual units.
 Proportion
• deals with the ratio of one part to
another and of the parts to the whole.
• Ration, imples a comparison between
parts. It is expressed in size, number,
a n d p o s i t i o n .
 Emphasis and Subordinant
• involved the differentiation between
the more important and the less
important.
 Balance
• is a feeling of equality in weight,
attention, or attraction of the various
elements. In its simplest expression,
balance suggests the gravitational
equilibrium of a single unit in space
or a pair of objects arranged with
respect to an axis or a fulcrum.
Music
 Sound
• All sound is produced by vibrations.
When the vibrations are regular, tones
or musical sounds are produced.
• In general - both tones and noise - has
four qualities: timbre, pitch, intensity,
and duration.
 Timbre
• tone color, or tone quality, refers to the
quality which enables us to distinguish
one sound from another, an instrument
from another, a friend's voice or
singer's voice from that of another.
 Pitch
• refers to the relative highness or
lowness of a tone. It is the result of
the frequency of vibrations: the faster
the vibrations (the “higher” the
frequency), the higher the pitch.
 Duration
• refers to the length of time which a
sound occupies - how long a sound is
heard.
 Intensity
• refers to the loudness or softness of a
sound.
• This quality results from the pressure or
force which is used to cause the
vibrations that produce a sound.
Melody
• is pitch added to rhythm. The term
tune, air, theme, motif, and melodic
line all mean the same thing as
melody.
• It consists of a series of tones of
varying pitches sounded in
succession.
 Direction
• characteristics of melody once again
refers to the spatial movement of tone,
to the changes in pitch.
• Progression considers the distance
between individual, successive tones.
 Register
• refers to the location of most of the
notes of a melody, whether they are
mostly high-, medium-, or low-
pitched.
• Ranged may be described as wide as
narrow, since only the highest and
lowest notes are considered.
Harmony
• It is the simultaneous sounding of
tones. Melody is the horizontal aspect
of music; harmony, its vertical aspect.
 Tone Color
• as applied to a piece of music rather than to
a single sound or tone, voice, instrument is
the result of tempo, dynamics, and the
timbre of the medium or mediums.

Dynamics, refers to the changes from loud

to soft
Tempo, refers to the speed at which music
 Texture
• is analogous to a piece of cloth which
consists of warp and woof threads
woven together.

3 distinct types of texture:

1. monophonic
2. homophonic
3. polyphonic
Thank You~