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Although visual flow should be a critical component of any design piece, many designers neglect it all together. Visual flow is what keeps a reader’s eye moving through a design and helps them know what’s next. If flow is not intentionally incorporated into a piece, readers could get confused or even get led of the page all together.
Good visual flow leads the reader in the right place. In a newspaper, good visual flow would point readers to the most important story on the page. On a Web page with a form, it would lead them to the form’s fields. Designers in many different fields use some of the following techniques to incorporate flow into their designs:
Visible Lines
Visible lines are the strongest forms of visual flow a designer can use. Use bold lines for stronger emphasis, and thin lines for a more subtle effect.
Sight Lines
If a picture features a face, that face should be looking at the focal point on the page. In a newspaper, for example, the placement of a photo on a page should depend on where the person pictured in that photo is looking. The eye should always be pointed at the story, and not off the page.
Motion
Visuals with motion have the same effect as visuals with eyes. The reader’s eye will flow wherever that motion is heading. If you want to use a visual with motion going the wrong way, you don’t have to get rid of it; simply reverse the picture.
Alignment
The alignment of pictures and text on a page is a strong indicator of the page’s flow. When elements are aligned, they create invisible lines that guide the eye. Text and visuals that are not aligned can be jarring to the eye, and sometimes cause readers to abandon a page before they try to figure out what they should focus on next.
Text
Text flows top to bottom, left to right. Do not disrupt this by using elements that flow the opposite way. For instance, you should try to avoid placing text next to pictures with motion going from right to left. You should also avoid angling text to make people read it from the bottom of the page to the top.
Repeating Patterns
If a reader sees a pattern emerge, their eye will keep following that pattern. Create visually appealing patterns of pictures, headlines, text blocks or even shapes to show readers what is important and what should be read together.
Varying Sizes
Size is a visual cue that lets the eye know what is important. Therefore, one of the best ways to emphasize an item on your page is to make it large. Take a car advertisement for example. The visual of the car is probably the most important part of the ad, so it should dominate the page. The ad’s headline should then be bigger than the body copy, and the body copy should be bigger than the disclaimer, reflecting the importance of each of these elements.
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