Can Be Long Short Thick Thin Curved or Straight Art Definition
If you moved to another country (where they don't speak the aforementioned language every bit you), one of the showtime things you'd probably do is get-go learning the language. You might fifty-fifty start long earlier you move in preparation for beingness able to communicate with the people y'all'll soon call neighbors.
Communication is an essential part of life and equally web designers information technology'due south what we do with every new design.
What happens when words won't do? If you desire someone to expect in a certain management you lot might point in that direction. We've all developed a grammar for communicating with physical gestures and nosotros communicate as much if not more with body language than we exercise with verbal language.
Web and graphic designers communicate visually. For example choosing a colour scheme with a night blueish as dominant sends a very different message than if the dominant color is hot pink. Color is ane way we communicate visually. It'southward 1 of the building blocks of visual grammar, which are usually defined to include:
- lines
- shapes
- colour
- texture
- value
- space
- form/volume/mass
We've talked about color theory and color meaning in the by likewise as using whitespace in design. Today I wanted to look at lines. What types of lines are at our disposal? What practice different lines communicate? Next time we'll talk about shapes and inquire some of the same questions about them.
The Grammar of Lines
A line is a dot out for a walk.
—Paul Klee
A line connects 2 points. It's also the path fabricated by a moving point. Lines tin be thick or thin. They tin can exist long or brusk. The tin be vertical, horizontal, or diagonal. They can be solid or dotted or dashed. Lines can be curved or directly of combinations of both. There'due south an countless variety in what nosotros retrieve of as a line.
Lines tin be literal or implied. Describe a series of 3, 4, or five points and your mind will fill in the line between them.
Each of the dissimilar ways we draw or represent a line gives information technology unique characteristics. Thick lines convey a different meaning than thin lines. A curved lines ship a unlike message than a sharp direct line.
Types of lines
There are several types of lines defined past their use.
- Profile lines are used to define edges. The create boundaries effectually or inside an object. Near lines yous encounter are profile lines. In spider web pattern these could be the borders you add around an object or grouping of objects
- Dividing lines tin also ascertain edges, but what distinguishes them from contour lines is they divide space. The lines betwixt columns of text are dividing lines as are the lines separating menu items.
- Decoration lines are used to embellish an object. Cross-hatching is an case of using ornamentation lines to add shading and form to an object. The line beneath liked text is a decorative line as are the lines used to create a floral background prototype
- Gesture lines are quick and crude continuous lines used to capture form and movement. They are generally used when studying the shape and motion of the human course. Yous likely won't apply gesture lines (based on the technical definition) in a spider web pattern, but you lot could certainly create patterns of lines to signify motion or build up a form
The Meaning of Dissimilar Kinds of Lines
As I mentioned in a higher place there are a lot of different ways we can describe a given line and each gives a line unique characteristics. What practise these characteristics mean and what practise they communicate? (.doc)
Thin lines are fragile. They appear easy to pause or knock over. They suggest frailty and convey an elegant quality. They are delicate and requite off an ephemeral air.
Thick lines on the other manus appear difficult to pause. They suggest strength and give accent to nearby elements. Thick lines are bold and make a statement.
Horizontal lines are parallel to the horizon (hence the name). They await similar they're lying down, at rest, asleep. They suggest calm and quiet, a relaxed comfort.
Horizontal lines can't fall over. They accentuate width. They're stable and secure. The convey an absence of conflict, a restful peace. Horizontal lines by their connexion to the horizon are associated with globe bound things and thought.
Vertical lines are perpendicular to the horizon. They are filled with potential energy that could exist released if they were to fall over. Vertical lines are strong and rigid. They tin can propose stability, especially when thicker. Vertical lines accentuate height and convey a lack of movement, which is ordinarily seen as horizontal.
They stretch from the globe to the heavens and are oft continued with religious feelings. Their tallness and formality may give the impression of dignity.
Diagonal lines are unbalanced. They are filled with restless and uncontrolled energy. They can appear to be either rising or falling and convey action and motion. Their kinetic energy and apparent motility create tension and excitement. Diagonal lines are more dramatic than either horizontal or vertical lines.
Diagonal lines can also appear solid and unmoving if they are holding something upwards or at rest confronting a vertical line or plane.
Curved lines are softer than direct lines. They sweep and plow gracefully between cease points. They are less definite and predictable than straight lines. They bend, they modify management. Curved lines limited fluid motion. They can be at-home or dynamic depending on how much they curve. The less active the bend the calmer the feeling.
Zigzag lines are a combination of diagonal lines that connect at points. They take on the dynamic and high free energy characteristics of diagonal lines. They create excitement and intense movement. They convey confusion and nervousness as they change direction rapidly and oft. They tin imply danger and destruction as they intermission downwards.
Long, perfectly fifty-fifty lines feel artificial. Nature is non perfectly straight. As variation is added to a line it becomes less artificial and more natural.
Dashed and dotted lines are implied lines. They're incomplete and allow objects to pass through them. A thick, vertical dotted or dashed line is still a stiff line, though not as stiff were the line completely solid.
Line Patterns
A series of lines form a blueprint. These line patterns convey meaning in addition to the meaning of the private lines.
Parallel lines of uniform width and spacing create a static and orderly consequence. It doesn't affair if the lines are horizontal or vertical or diagonal. Even in curved lines the repetition creates order, notwithstanding one more than dynamic than directly lines. Not too how the series of curved lines while mostly static, still creates a sense of movement.
By varying the spacing between lines of equal thickness we can convey motion. When the spacing between lines of the same thickness is random we get a dynamic effect with little order. When we vary both spacing and thickness the consequence becomes more chaotic and disorderly.
Patterns of lines tin exist built upwards to create shading and texture. Value tin can be controlled through employ of line. Lines can be combined to form shapes. Lines can be fabricated upwardly of type or whatsoever shape placed one after the other.
How to Use Lines in Web Design
We employ lines to organize, connect, and separate data and design elements. You lot can use lines to convey movement and create texture. Lines provide emphasis and define shape. They can be used to convey mood and emotion.
Think of any website and all the places lines are or could be used. When you align elements of a blueprint yous create an unsaid line that organizes and connects those elements. You tin can farther emphasize the relationship with a real line.
Yous add together borders effectually various elements in your pattern to grouping them and clear separate them from other elements on the page.
Lines are used to divide header from content and content from footer. They're used to divide the folio into columns and rows of data. Filigree lines might even be the structural glue holding your entire design together.
Design is controlling infinite and lines are oftentimes used to define that space. We can use real or unsaid lines in combination with the gestalt principles of continuity, compatible connectedness, proximity, parallelism, common region, and even closure.
Summary
Lines are an essential building block in our visual vocabulary. Combined with shapes, color, value, texture, space, and class they give u.s. a visual grammar which nosotros tin use to communicate.
They seem simple. You didn't need me to tell you what a line is when you started reading this postal service and yet here nosotros are some 2,000 or so words afterward and we've barely scratched the surface of what lines can do. If we wanted them to, lines could create the surface and represent the scratch.
Something as simple as a line can accept an endless combination or variety and through that multifariousness convey different meanings, concepts, themes.
Even more when we combine lines into patterns we tin convey additional information and meaning. we can apply lines to create textures and shapes, which leads the states to the adjacent postal service.
Side by side time we'll continue to build our visual grammar with a discussion of shapes.
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Source: https://vanseodesign.com/web-design/visual-grammar-lines/