Journal Five-Visual Rhetoric

Four basic design principles are alignment, proximity, repetition and contrast. Alignment is known as items on the page that are lined up with each other. In order, for you web page to have good alignment choose one alignment, the left side, right side, or center, and use that one alignment on the entire page. Mixing alignments makes your page look very unprofessional and weak. In addition to vertical alignment, horizontal alignment is also important because the text sits on an invisible line called the "base line" which is horizontal. If a page has a lot of information on it, it should follow strict alignment in order for it to be clear. For instance, elements should be moved away from the extreme left edge of the web page and italicizing caped words make a web page also look weak.

The second basic design principle is proximity, which is the relationship that items develop when they are close together. One has to be very conscious of the space between elements. Items should be grouped together that belong together. For instance, a headline with a sub-line, captions with pictures and subhead with text. Headlines should always be close to what it is related to or the audience of your web page would be in a sense of confusion. Also, never hit two returns between paragraphs because it will make the paragraphs look like they do not belong together. 

The third basic design principle is known as repetition. You repeat certain elements that tie all the disparate parts together. On a web site, navigation buttons should be the same color, style, illustration, format, layout and typography. Many logos can also make web pages look repetitive.

 The last basic design principle is contrast, which is what draws your eyes into the page and pull you in. All pages should have a focal point. To provide contrast and create a focal point make your logos BIG. The focal point should be the biggest and first thing you see on the page.

After reading basic design principles, it made me think a lot about my page. However, I think that alignment is not that important in this type of web page. The way that our papers are aligned and the colors, text and pictures that we use should give a sense of our personalities and also a feeling of the paper that was written. However, color is very important in a web page.  Color gives an overall feeling and personality for the site. If the site is dark, the audience may get a sense of gloominess and/or anger while viewing the page. But if the page is full of color and brightness, the audience will feel the tone of happiness.