I know I can just look them up, but I need them explained in relation to signatures and graphic design along with other terms people use often when critiquing. Thanks.
3 Comments to “When people use words such as flow, composition, etc to critique graphic design pieces what do they mean?”
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Flow has to do with how your eyes/attention are directed around the elements of a piece.
Composition is how it’s done, or made up. Does it do the job? Does it express what it should?
Every critic will have their own style and “words”.
If you don’t understand what’s being said, don’t worry, neither does anyone else.
It’s all part of the art “game”. People try to “out snob” each other. Don’t worry about it. Art is completely subjective, and there’s no predicting how people will react.
I suppose that a piece “flows” if you can look at it and not get your eyes caught up in one distracting bit of it… the design is such that your eyes can move around the design in a way that allows you to take in the whole image, and not get caught up or dragged back to a dominate area.
Composition is complicated, but it’s one of the most important elements of a piece of art. Composition is a little like flow, in that a well composed piece will let your eyes travel around the design and take it all in as a whole, but it includes other elements as well. If a piece has a good composition, it will look “right”– not unbalanced or mismatched, and without clashing shapes or too much tension between shapes. The piece may not be symmetrical, but it will have a sense of balance to it. You could call it layout– a good composition is a good layout.
Look up the elements and principles of design. These terms and concepts make up a lot of what is said in critiques, so if you familiarize yourself with them you’ll know a lot more about what people are trying to say, and realize when someone’s said something valuable or if they’re just hiding behind terminology.
These words are technical terms attempting to describe art, often a very NON technical subject. But by using standardized terms, these subjects can be taught and critiqued in order to pass on information.
So, if you CAN look up these terms, then I encourage you to do so, before posting your questions. More often than not, you can figure out the relationship between the word and the work for yourself.