We can use shapes and color to convey emotion.
Colors have intrinsic associations with real world things, and these are mostly universal and very ‘primal’ - fire, sun, water, night.
Round shapes are perceived as safe, welcoming, organic; spiky, pointed shapes imply danger, action, excitement; horizontal shapes are stable and calm; vertical shapes are exciting, giving a sense of movement or scale; diagonals imply motion, change and dynamism.
Remember how we used Molly Bang’s visual retelling of the Red Riding Hood story to demonstrate some of those principles?
Size - does RRH feel less powerful in the woods if we make her smaller?
Shapes - more pointy triangles makes the wolf a great deal more menacing than a curvy wolf.
Values - which is more scary, a forest in broad daylight, or at twilight?
Horizontal and vertical shapes together don’t imply much motion. It’s a pretty calm scene in here:
Colors have intrinsic associations with real world things, and these are mostly universal and very ‘primal’ - fire, sun, water, night.
Round shapes are perceived as safe, welcoming, organic; spiky, pointed shapes imply danger, action, excitement; horizontal shapes are stable and calm; vertical shapes are exciting, giving a sense of movement or scale; diagonals imply motion, change and dynamism.
Remember how we used Molly Bang’s visual retelling of the Red Riding Hood story to demonstrate some of those principles?
Size - does RRH feel less powerful in the woods if we make her smaller?
Shapes - more pointy triangles makes the wolf a great deal more menacing than a curvy wolf.
Values - which is more scary, a forest in broad daylight, or at twilight?
Horizontal and vertical shapes together don’t imply much motion. It’s a pretty calm scene in here:
But add in diagonals and all of a sudden:
Values are how dark or light something is on a black to white scale. It’s a common rule of thumb in illustration that if you plan an image that reads well using only three or four values (black, grey, white) (black, near black, near white, white), most of the time it will continue to read well after you add color to it.
Where do you put different objects in an image? There is ‘gravity’ in pictures - we associate the top of a picture with freedom, lightness, while objects near the bottom of a frame are perceived as stabler.
Silhouettes are images of an object that are filled it with a solid color and whose edges are the outline of the object as we would have seen it in space. We read silhouettes before we read any details, and our minds fill in any missing information. A clear silhouette will ensure what your audience is able to quickly grasp whatever you are trying to show them, so if your goal is clarity, position the elements in your image such that a clear and distinct silhouette for the focal elements can be seen. Especially in animation, when characters are only in a specific pose for a very short duration, they need to read clearly to the audience.
source.
Where do you put different objects in an image? There is ‘gravity’ in pictures - we associate the top of a picture with freedom, lightness, while objects near the bottom of a frame are perceived as stabler.
Silhouettes are images of an object that are filled it with a solid color and whose edges are the outline of the object as we would have seen it in space. We read silhouettes before we read any details, and our minds fill in any missing information. A clear silhouette will ensure what your audience is able to quickly grasp whatever you are trying to show them, so if your goal is clarity, position the elements in your image such that a clear and distinct silhouette for the focal elements can be seen. Especially in animation, when characters are only in a specific pose for a very short duration, they need to read clearly to the audience.
source.
