Design fundamentals: the six elements and the six principles

Nouns and verbs

The elements are the materials. You can point at them: this is a line, this is a shape, this is the space between them. They are countable and they are present in every design whether or not anybody chose them.

The principles are operations. You cannot point at proximity; you can only point at two things that are near each other and observe the effect. Principles are what a designer does to elements, which is why a principle can be applied badly and an element cannot.

Most confused design feedback is a principle described as if it were an element: "it needs more contrast" when what is meant is "these two headings are the same size and should not be".

The six principles, as operations

Alignment

Every element sits on a line shared with something else. Nothing is placed arbitrarily. This single operation accounts for most of what separates an amateur layout from a professional one.

Proximity

Things that belong together are near each other, and things that do not are not. Grouping is read before anything is decoded, which is why a caption closer to the wrong image is worse than a caption with no image at all.

Contrast

Differences are made large enough to be intentional. A small difference reads as a mistake; the same difference doubled reads as a decision.

Repetition

The same treatment for the same kind of thing, every time. This is the operation underneath brand consistency.

Hierarchy

The order of attention is decided rather than left to chance. If everything is emphasised, nothing is.

Balance

Visual weight is distributed deliberately, symmetrically or otherwise. Asymmetry is balance too, and it is usually more interesting.

The same six, as checks

Each principle can be checked rather than felt, and the check is what makes the word usable in feedback. The list above says what the operation is; this one says how to tell whether it happened.

Alignment

Count the distinct left edges in the layout. Four elements sharing one edge is alignment; four elements on four edges is not, whatever it looks like from a distance.

Proximity

Measure the gap inside a group against the gap between groups. If the inner gap is not clearly the smaller of the two, the grouping is not being read, and no amount of styling will make it read.

Contrast

Take the ratio of the two values, not the difference. Two headings at 18 and 20 px stand at 1.11:1 and read as an error; the same pair at 18 and 32 px stands at 1.78:1 and reads as a decision.

Repetition

Find the same kind of thing twice and compare its treatment property by property. A difference you have to hunt for is still a difference the reader absorbs.

Hierarchy

Look away, look back, and name what you read first. If the answer changes between two attempts, the order was never decided; it was left to whatever happened to be largest.

Balance

Cover half the composition and ask whether the remaining half still holds. If it collapses, the weight was carried by one element rather than distributed.

Each of those is a question with an answer. That alone separates a principle from an adjective, and it is why the six are worth learning as operations rather than as vocabulary.

Where the elements are covered

The elements entry defines all six tightly enough to argue with, which is the standard this reference applies to definitions. Colour and contrast takes the one element that carries both an aesthetic and an accessibility obligation and treats it on its own.

Type is an element too, and a large enough one to have its own section: how faces are classified, paired and set into a scale is the same judgement applied to one material.

The order the fundamentals get applied in

Hierarchy first: decide what is read in what order, before anything is styled. Then proximity and alignment, which establish the structure. Then contrast, to make the hierarchy visible. Then repetition, to make the whole thing hold together across pieces. Balance is checked last, because it is a property of the finished arrangement rather than a step in making it.

Working in the other direction, styling first and organising afterwards, is possible and it is slower, because every organisational change invalidates a styling decision.