Color Schemes

Light, Color, and Value

Line

Shape and Form

Space

Texture

These links will help illustrate the elements and principles of design. Lesson plans can be developed around each of the linked web pages.

Each Web page shows an example of one element or principle with explanatory text.

The elements and principles can help organize a composition and help determine what doesn't fit. An underlying plan can hold things together. Artists from ancient Greece, the Italian Renaissance, to modern architects and makers of modern cars use these elements and principles to lay out their ideas.

One of the enduring principles is proportion. Proportion can determine the size of a building or a car and the disposition of its elements.

These definitions were developed during the era of the Bauhaus, in Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Balance

Emphasis

Pattern

Proportion

Rhythm and Movement

Unity and Variety