First, we're gong to focus on line,shape, and form. 0:00
These are some of the most fundamentalelements of art design and 0:05
I think you'll find that they'reclosely related to one another. 0:08
The most basic element of art anddesign is line. 0:12
A line is a point that moves continuously,like the motion of a single brush stroke. 0:17
Sometimes a line is all that'sneeded to create an image. 0:25
Like in this case of a figure drawing,lines can both unify and divide. 0:28
A horizontal line might createa peaceful horizon in a landscape, 0:36
or a line can be used to break up a space. 0:42
For example, horizontal and vertical linescan be used to divide different sections 0:46
of content on a websiteinto logical groups. 0:50
And communicate organization andstability. 0:53
However, lines can also be diagonal orwavy in shape. 0:57
There could be scribbles all overthe screen that are still just lines. 1:04
This has a tendency tocommunicate disorder and 1:08
chaos, and that's not necessarilya good or a bad thing. 1:10
Understanding the elements andprinciples of art and 1:15
design from an objective perspective canhelp you use them to your advantage. 1:17
You might use diagonal linesto help lead the viewer's eye. 1:23
Or you might use chaotic squigglylines to draw more attention to 1:28
a part of your design. 1:32
Lines can also take ondifferent qualities. 1:34
Lines might be solid or dashed. 1:38
And they might have a very straight edgeor a rough edge, like a brush stroke. 1:41
If you're familiar with CSS,the border property maps to this idea. 1:47
A solid line can communicatesomething that is definitive and 1:52
absolute, while rougher lines mightindicate that something is more temporary. 1:57
For example, dashed or 2:03
dotted lines are sometimes used toindicate an edge where someone should 2:04
cut the paper with scissors,such as a coupon or a shipping label. 2:09
The next element is shape. 2:15
Shapes are areas thatare defined by contrast. 2:17
For example, a shape might be definedby a set of lines coming together 2:22
to form a closed area or a shape mightbe defined by a difference in value. 2:27
A shape could also be an areathat's different in color. 2:34
In software and on the web,you find geometric shapes everywhere, 2:38
and in particular you find lotsof rectangles from content cards, 2:43
and drop down menus,to the actual screens themselves. 2:48
This tends to give software a veryboxy look, with lots of horizontal and 2:53
vertical lines, andlots of rectangles arranged in a grid. 2:58
This can communicate a lot of stability ororganization, which can be a good thing. 3:03
But you can also breakaway from the grid and 3:08
rectangular shapes to drawattention to an area of a web page. 3:10
Similarly, a complicated layout might usetoo many rectangles and too many shapes. 3:15
This can create what I like tocall a box within a box aesthetic, 3:22
where there's just too manynested shapes and rectangles. 3:25
Instead of adding organization orstructure, 3:30
this can actually cause the page to feelcluttered with lots of visual friction. 3:33
The last element that we'll talk abouthere that's closely related is form. 3:38
Form is geometry that existsin three dimensional space. 3:44
You might think this isn't applicable, 3:49
since software typically existson a flat bed of pixels. 3:51
But artists have used shading andperspective for 3:55
thousands of years to createthe illusion of depth and form. 4:00
Photos and illustrations canappear to have depth, and 4:04
technologies like WebGL canadd 3D models to a web page. 4:08
And furthermore, the future ofspatial computing using virtual and 4:13
augmented reality makes formmore relevant than ever. 4:17
Form can elicit a strong emotionalresponse because it maps to our 4:22
everyday experience of a tactile andthree-dimensional world. 4:26
3D geometric shapes might beused to break up a space on 4:30
a page in the same way as line. 4:35
Or the same way that you mightuse shapes to, once again, 4:37
direct the user's eye towardan important page element. 4:41
As you can imagine, the possibilitiesare quite literally endless. 4:45
