Design Principles: Compositional, Symmetrical, Asymmetrical Balance

 

A balanced composition feels right. It feels stable and aesthetically pleasing. While some of its elements might be focal points and attract your eye, no one area of the composition draws your eye so much that you can’t see the other areas.

Balancing a composition involves arranging both positive elements and negative space in such a way that no one area of the design overpowers other areas. Everything works together and fits together in a seamless whole. The individual parts contribute to their sum A balanced composition feels right. It feels stable and but don’t try to become the sum.

When it comes to creating art, or designing a practical piece such as a calling card or a cover letter template, balance is rather important both for aesthetic and professional reasons. 

We are naturally attracted to well-balanced pieces of art, architecture and naturally occurring sights and events, and throughout our history, we’ve been trying to emulate the principles of balance.

Yet despite the need for symmetry, we often purposefully destroy the visual equilibrium, shake up the conventional norm and create something different, either for the sake of variety or to take a stand and deliver a message in a stronger, more dynamic way.

In this text we will learn about the nature of balance, see its effect in our surroundings and artworks, and discuss the differences between the two types of balance: symmetrical and asymmetrical.

Balance in Nature and Art:

When it comes to art, we may say that balance represents the purposeful organization of visual elements of varying weight. When we say weight, we are referring to the overall shape, form, and significance of a particular visual element. 

Combining these elements into a cohesive unit, whether that unit is a painting, a sculpture, or a wedding invitation is how we create artworks.

Balance can be found everywhere in the physical world, in greater or lesser degrees, and great masters have been implementing it in their work since forever. In nature, we will usually recognize the objects which are able to carry their own weight as balanced. Imbalanced objects are easy to topple.

To illustrate balance in the simplest of terms, we may use the see-saw as an example. If we place two people of more or less equal weight and size, the beam would be in the state of balance, with weight equally distributed on its two sides, and equally distanced from the center of the balance or the fulcrum. This center of balance is also the center of the composition of an artwork or a design.

However, if we place two persons of different weights on the see-saw, one smaller and one larger, the beam of the see-saw would be off balance. The only way to balance the beam would be to either move the larger person towards the fulcrum until the balance is reached or to place another smaller person on the other side of the see-saw.

This is applicable in terms of design as well. When we say that a visual item has greater or lesser weight, we are referring to its ability to draw out attention. If our attention is held mostly on one particular visual object, then we say that that object has a greater visual weight.

Thus, in an art piece such as a painting, visual weight is what replaces the physical weight of the object depicted, while the visual direction is what replaces the direction we position objects in real life in order to achieve balance, much like in the case of the see-saw.

Visual weight is of crucial importance when it comes to the emphasizing the elements of your design. Usually, the greater the visual weight, the greater the importance of the object portrayed. If all the parts of your design are of equal weight, you will present a balanced, engaging, aesthetically pleasing composition.

This is not applied to objects alone, but on living creatures as well.

Observe the wings of a butterfly – they are vividly colored and fragile, and both wings are colored in the very same way, the patterns and shapes matching perfectly. This is an example of balance in nature.

Trees, however, follow their own path. The branches are seemingly growing haphazardly, and rarely will one see a tree perfectly balanced in terms of shape. But there are cases of a more balanced “design”, of course.

In normal circumstances, balance is a desirable feature to have in one’s artwork, but sometimes, a stronger message can be sent by disregarding the principles of balance and making one’s art asymmetrical and imbalanced. 

Thus, the choice is truly between a classical, stable, formal expression vs. a more modern, dynamic expression, as exemplified in the two types of balance we will explore within this text.

Balance can be achieved in various following ways:

Symmetrical Balance:

Symmetrical balance is a type of visual balance where a work of art is composed in such a way that all visual objects are equally distanced from the central axis, or the central point, of the design. And not only that – the objects from both sides of the axis look the same, only as reflected in a mirror.

Remember the butterfly – the design of its wings is an example of the symmetrical balance found in nature, where all the opposing shapes are counterparts of one another and are in perfect proportion. And such near-perfect symmetry has always been considered as aesthetically pleasing, even today.

However, such perfect symmetry is actually very rare. The most common type of symmetrical balance is the so-called near symmetry we see in a human face. The left and the right side match seemingly perfectly, but there may be slight variations, more or less noticeable.

In the case of design and art in general, symmetrical balance is fairly easy to accomplish and is much more prominent than in nature.

Observe, for instance, the marvelous Taj Mahal, one of the most cited examples of perfect symmetrical balance in architecture. All the details match one another on both sides of this majestic construction. 

There is not a single object taking the spotlight, or ruining the overall impression of purest harmony – a perfectly balanced display of craftsmanship and artistic taste.

The symmetry of the visual objects tells us that we should focus on the building as a whole, not on any particular visual object. Thus arranged, the symmetrical design gives off the feeling of serenity and classical elegance.

Asymmetrical Balance:

Asymmetrical balance happens when you organize the composition in a seemingly chaotic way (visual objects of varying weights are not mirror images of one another), and yet, a sense of balance is somehow still present.

This may be accomplished in various ways. For example, you may place a visual object of great weight on one side of your composition, and then balance it with a number of smaller ones on the other. 

This will make your composition more dynamic and modern and might help you deliver your message with greater effect.

Remember: darker and larger objects have more weight than smaller and lighter objects, so take these criteria into consideration while creating your design. Asymmetrical images attract more attention due to the more complex relationship between objects used to create the composition. 

Thus, this type of balance tends to be more interesting – the harmonious expression of symmetrically balanced compositions tends to be somewhat passive, while designers using asymmetrically balanced designs usually do not need to worry about maintaining the attention of the audience.

When looking for examples of asymmetrically designed compositions, Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” is one of the most impressive variants of this design. The bright moon on the top right corner is balanced by the dark cypress trees on the bottom left side of the painting.

The stars and the clouds on the upper half of the painting are balanced by the detailed portrayal of the town on the bottom half of the painting. Just like the moon and the cypress trees balance each other through the contrasting relationship of light and dark, the same can be said for this as well.

Radial Balance:

Radial Balance can be fun to experiment with in design projects. Rather than balancing objects across a central line in the composition, objects balance according to a single point in the center of the design.

While it can be tempting to balance the composition by placing different objects equidistant from the center, you can also balance them in other ways. One method is to place a heavier object closer to the center, while a lighter object is placed at a distance, so long as a line, drawn between them, would pass directly through the center point.

In radial balance, elements radiate out (in a circular shape) from one main center point. If you’re looking to create a strong focal point, radial balance is an effective technique because your eyes are naturally drawn inwards to the center.

Mosaic Balance:

Think of mosaic balance as organized chaos that might look like noise, but actually creates balance thanks to the absence of a distinct focal point.

Mosaic or crystallographic balance refers to visual compositions that do not have focal point or fulcrum, and therefore lack of hierarchy and emphasis is present. Sometimes this type of balance is also called ‘all over’ balance.

Although it may seem that art and design that use mosaic balance are chaotic, repetitive, full of visual noise and disorder, they actually possess consistency and dynamism in the apparent chaos of forms and patterns. 

One example where this type of balance reached the highest expressive and aesthetic quality is work of Jackson Pollock and his action painting of dripping paint.

Balance in Design and Art:

Similar visual principles apply to both art and design when it comes to balance. The principle of balance that can be sensed and directly observed plays an important role in any visual work as it adds to its completeness and expressive quality. 

Throughout history different art movements and periods demonstrated a preference for diverse forms of balance. Renaissance paintings usually possess symmetrical or approximate balance while Baroque aesthetics of exuberance and exaggerated motion found in asymmetrical balance the adequate formula for its dynamic compositions.

Being one of the major principles of art and design, balance is directly dependent on the intimate sense of artist, designer and ultimately, the viewer. Various manipulations with visual principles and elements throughout history abound, but balance remains a constant that cannot be countermanded.

 

Written by – Sakshi Chauhan