Unity: Why It's a Design Principle

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004): Three wealthy children's parents are killed in a fire. When they are sent to a distant relative, they find out that he is plotting to kill them and seize their fortune.

Unity is a design principle and backbone to professional layouts, artwork, and movies. The movie, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events exemplifies why Unity is so important. Unity is an essential element for period pieces, because Unity is persuasive and makes the storyline believable. It's a great movie to study and see how the design principle of Unity was carried out throughout the entire storyline. Unity in theme, characters, costumes, special effects, and stage settings were consistent. Unity is so important, because when, if, or where the Unity breaks on a piece whether its a movie, painting, or website―the believability and visual communication breaks apart too.

To create Unity, Artists must stay focused and be analytical about their work. Artists need to maintain objectivity and accept critiques from their peers, friends, and family members. If the purpose and message in which an artist intends to portray is consistently understood the same way by several people―the principle of Unity was probably maintained. Unity goes beyond what we visually see; in fact, Unity is a combination of the message and concept of the artwork. In other words, the message must match the visual illustrations and vice versa. As graphic designers create layouts, they are supporting the message in every way they can. Every aspect needs to match in theme and theory. The style of writing needs to blend, the headings and text need to support each other, and the color theme and illustrations tie it all together too.

Even when we dress for success and groom ourselves, we look for clothes that match or at least go with our skin and hair coloring. We look for clothing and hair styles that are age appropriate and match our body type. When we do this, we are using the design principle known as Unity. Unity is pleasing to the eye, and when we fall short of it, many of us feel uncomfortable about our appearance. For the most part, environmental photographers expect their subjects to dress for the occasion. For example, if somebody is fishing, we expect to see them in casual clothing. Yet, we dont expect to see casual clothing in a ball room setting. Instinctively, most of us know to dress up or down to where we are goingthis makes us feel comfortable, because we are in Unity with our environment. To consciously understand this principle, w e can improve our approach to our artistic expressions whether we are creating movies, paintings, or layouts. (revised 2/12/2006)

Debbie Jensen, Graphic Designer and Photographer http://www.debjensendesigns.com

Author:: Debbie Jensen
Keywords:: Unity, design principles, define Unity, design principle of Unity, Article, debbie jensen, Artists,
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