Conveying Movement through Anticipation

Justin Lemaire — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:06:42 +0000

If you are going to be a competent graphic designer that produces good results time and time again, you need to learn different principles of graphic design. These principles go over a lot of the elements that we’ve been discussing up to this point and for that reason are a good place to go to now that we have a firm understanding of the basic elements of graphic design.The first principle of design is the principle of movement and there are a number of different ways that you can create movement within a static picture (sounds a little incongruous I know, but hey that’s design for you!).

Remember that the picture you are creating is not a picture that you are creating to be placed in a dark room never to be seen again, but rather is a picture that will be viewed by people with experiences that you can use in your design. Therefore, a picture of a figure in some sort of body position that can not be held strongly implies motion through anticipation born from experience.

Consider a picture taken of a pitcher in the middle of their windup or a diver before they hit the water and after they’ve jumped. Both of these pictures are of people in positions that can not be held and for that reason there is anticipation of movement which in turn creates the impression of movement in the mind of the person viewing the picture.

Copying this principle whenever you are drawing live figures is one way to create movement in your designs.

Concept Wizards » principle_of_design

Conveying Movement through Anticipation

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