1 Comment Written by Robert on June 20, 2008 – 4:11 am

The focal point is the most important design element in any composition. It is the focus of your composition and should take center stage among all other design elements in order for your design to be a success. For example, let’s say that you’ve decided to do a drawing of a beach with a lone palm tree swaying in the wind. If the focus of your drawing is the palm tree, then it should be the first element your eye focuses on.

All other design elements, such as the ocean, sand, and sky should enhance the mood but not compete with the palm tree. This can easily be accomplished through the use of value, tension, perspective, and color (image 1). Note how the palm tree is the center of attention, using light and shadow to stand out from the rest.

Before you start on any composition, ask yourself these questions: What is the focus of my composition?

What other design elements are necessary in order to support and help define this focal point? What story am I trying to tell? Write your answers down to use as a reminder while you’re designing your composition. The use of notes related to your projects can help you stay focused until completion.

Create a composition using a simple piece of subject matter (bottle, pen, phone, soda can, palm tree, etc.) and two other elements that will enhance your composition and drive your message home. For example, draw a wallet as the focal point with two quarters laying next to it, or a candle as the focal point with a pack of matches and a burnt match.

Tension

Tension is defined as, “A balance maintained in an artistic work between opposing forces or elements.” In the case of our lone sphere among the other shapes, we seek to define our focal point even more by arranging our shapes in such a way that their direct spatial relationship to each other gives a feeling of tension or claustrophobia. In the examples in image 3, note how the rearrangement of the shapes works together to force your eye into reading the sphere first.

Read the Flow

The “read” is the way your eyes perceive visual information as it relates to “the flow” of a composition. The flow is kind of like an arrow that points to our subject matter saying, “Look here!”

It should be a very natural feeling that guides the eye to our focal point, and then at will, the viewer’s eye can casually wander throughout the composition, soaking up the rest of the details.

A very basic example of flow is that in the U.S. we read text from left to right. It is so much a part of our culture and our training that our eyes feel most at ease when absorbing information or design elements that start on the left- hand side and end on the right. This natural tendency for our eyes to move from left to right is capitalized upon by all sorts of visual media such as print ads, commercials, television, film, and so on. For example, if during a car commercial the car enters from the left side of the screen and exits to the right, we feel more at ease with this movement than if the car enters from the right and moves across to exit stage left.

The exit stage left technique creates a certain amount of tension in our eye movement. In some cases this kind of tension is good and helps to pique visual interest, but in the name of selling a product, an easy read is better than a confusing one. An easy read is a highly effective compositional technique that allows for quick absorption of the subject matter.

Creating the flow of your composition can be achieved through the use of value, color, graphic impact, and tension.

Note my example (image 4). This is a very simplistic use of shapes and values to lead your eye to our focal point the sphere. Note the use of random shapes at the top of the drawing that sort of force your eye past them to our focal point.

A more sophisticated use of the flow technique is seen in the second example (image 5). Notice the use of large foreground shapes; the wheels and suspension, one after the other, descend upon and lead your eye up to the pilot in the cockpit. As you can see, even though the cockpit is the focal point, the other elements are just as important because they are controlling the flow. Also note how the cockpit contrasts with the white background, thereby putting more attention onto our focal point.