In design, emphasis is an important way to draw the eye, make certain elements stand out, and effectively communicate meaning. Through techniques such as contrast, focus, and dominance, you can establish a focal point in your design, which can help you convey a stronger visual message. There should be one center of emphasis, and all other elements should complement it.
To catch people’s eyes, keep them there longer, and reinforce visual meaning, you need to make one place within a unit stand out more than another. It’s not just about visual impact, it’s about maximizing the power of your message and the purposefulness of your design. Design isn’t just decoration, it’s a tool for communicating information and emotion, and its effectiveness depends heavily on how visual elements are arranged and emphasized.
The application of this aesthetic principle to design is called “emphasis,” and it’s often achieved through contrast, focus, and dominance. In modern design, these methods go beyond mere aesthetic expression to include practical functionality, such as user experience (UX). Contrast is a phenomenon that occurs when two different elements approach each other spatially or temporally, so contrast is very useful in design because it’s a way to juxtapose two markedly different elements so that one feature stands out more than the other. Organizing information in this way can be good design because contrast focuses or maintains attention and draws the eye to a particular part of the image. For example, if you place a straight line alongside a curve, the straight line’s features will stand out more against the curve. In general, vertical and horizontal, thick and thin, big and small, smooth and rough, far and near, high and low, light and dark, etc. are all good contrasts in design. But it’s not just qualitative contrast that creates emphasis, it’s also quantitative contrast. When a single curved line is placed in a group of many straight lines, it creates a quantitative contrast in addition to a formal contrast, and the effect of emphasis is even greater.
Concentration is another way to emphasize an element, bringing all the elements together in one place for the purpose of emphasizing it. In other words, concentration directs the eye to a center or focal point, and it is more effective when used in conjunction with radiation or pointing, which are elements of rhythm. But when we talk about drawing the eye to a center, it’s not the same as a center of gravity or a geometric center. The center is related to aesthetic factors and is the center of aesthetic interest. Therefore, depending on where you place the center, it can have a different aesthetic feel and effect. In general, you can easily achieve the effect of drawing the eye to the center of a flat piece by placing a shape near or slightly above it.
There’s also a technique for placing peripheral elements in a subordinate position around a central object, known as dominance. It’s a way of centering something in an area, giving it a dominant role, and subordinating other things to it to further emphasize the main point. Metaphorically, it’s like the relationship between the lead actor in a play or movie, who plays a central role, and the supporting actor, who plays a supporting role. However, if you want to put one of them in a dominant position, you have to consider contrast or focus. In this sense, both contrast and focus are included in dominance. Contrast emphasizes one of the contrasted things, which is more central, and focus emphasizes only one focal point, so they are both methods of dominance.
However, in any case, there should be one center of emphasis that draws interest and attention, not more than one. When elements of a design coexist to a similar degree and with similar proportions, the eye wanders without finding a focal point, and the design loses tension. Therefore, for emphasis, one center point should serve as the focal point, and the rest of the elements should be subordinate to it, complementing and supplementing it.
