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BALANCEThe Principle: Once your page is balanced, you will no longer notice the elements as being individual. Your whole page will become one piece and the viewers eyes will flow from one element to the next seamlessly. There are several types of balance:
Balanced Logos It can be hard to tell when a graphic is in balance by looking at it; sometimes it helps to think of the design elements as simple shapes: rectangles, squares, circles, and ellipses. Try holding your design at arm's length and squinting at it to see the basic elements.
When we look at the above logo as blocks, it's pretty obvious that it is in balance; symmetrical balance. Kind of boring though. Asymmetrical balance often gives designs a feeling of excitement and movement, like the logo below.
Although our logo is now slightly asymmetrical, it's just a little bit unbalanced. Using a graduated screen in the bar below "Tennis" helps to shift the emphasis from that bar; it also leads the eye from the word "Tennis" straight to the word "group", tying the company name together nicely. It's still a relatively conservative logo, though.
Now our logo is decidedly asymmetrical; just look how much more of the logo lies to the left of the center line. It's also a more exciting logo. Young people belong to this club.
I think it's easy to see why symmetrical balance is also called formal balance in the above logo. The entire logo is balanced; there's the same amount on both sides of the center line. A logo like this would be appropriate for a Tennis club that caters to the older crowd. |
