{"id":203,"date":"2025-10-14T19:17:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T19:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=203"},"modified":"2025-10-14T19:17:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T19:17:05","slug":"reflections-on-designing-with-intention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=203","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Designing with Intention:"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This week I learned a lot about &#8220;<strong>What is Design<\/strong>.&#8221; I gathered that good design isn\u2019t just about aesthetics, it\u2019s about clarity, purpose, and emotional connection. <strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#000000\" class=\"has-inline-color\">The<\/mark><a href=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=199\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#ff6900\" class=\"has-inline-color\"> Vignelli Canon<\/mark><\/a><\/strong> provided so many tips to help me become a better designer. If you&#8217;re creating a website, a poster, or a physical space, certain timeless principles help shape effective visual communication. Among them are a few that I wrote about in my previous <mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-raft-fg-color\">blog.<\/mark>\u00a0<strong>Proportion<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>minimalism<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>rhythm<\/strong>, and <strong>topography<\/strong>\u00a0are four that serve as cornerstones for building meaningful and memorable designs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In summary I will describe how these concepts function, what I learned, and why they matter to designers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. Proportion: The Art of Visual Balance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Proportion<\/strong>&nbsp;refers to the relationship between elements in a composition. It helps determine what feels natural, balanced, or intentionally skewed. Great design often relies on a sense of harmony that comes from well-calculated proportions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. Minimalism: Less, But Better<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a world saturated with noise,\u00a0<strong>minimalism<\/strong>\u00a0brings clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A minimalist design doesn\u2019t lack detail; it prioritizes it. In design, every space, line, and color has a purpose. This discipline leads to designs that are timeless and highly functional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. Rhythm: Creating Visual Movement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Design is visual music.&nbsp;<strong>Rhythm<\/strong>&nbsp;in design comes from repeated patterns, consistent spacing, and thoughtful pacing. It\u2019s what guides the viewer\u2019s eye through a composition\u2014either gently or with bold, deliberate movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The key is&nbsp;<strong>consistency<\/strong>. Just as a song with a steady beat is easier to follow, a design with rhythm feels cohesive and natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. Topography: Designing with the Land in Mind<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Often overlooked,\u00a0<strong>topography<\/strong>\u00a0refers to the physical features of a surface, especially in environmental or spatial design. Topography is about understanding the &#8220;lay of the land&#8221; in any medium, and working\u00a0<em>with<\/em>\u00a0it rather than against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Design with topography in mind. Topography adds integrity and usability to your work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Designing with Depth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All in all, I learned that good design uses:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Proportion<\/strong>\u00a0to balance sizes<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Minimalism<\/strong>\u00a0to remove clutter<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rhythm<\/strong>\u00a0to guide the eye<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Topography<\/strong>\u00a0to work with space<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is a link to my <a href=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=201\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#0693e3\" class=\"has-inline-color\">DesignBlitz<\/mark><\/strong><\/a> where I go into detail about each one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you combine proportion, minimalism, rhythm, and topography, you&#8217;re not just creating visuals, you\u2019re crafting an experience. These principles help you design with <strong>intention<\/strong>, allowing each element to contribute to a greater whole. I enjoyed this assignment because it taught me more about the fundamentals of design. More knowledge helps with creating better designs overall. I am still having some difficulty getting the sizing right when I post my pictures. I need some work on formatting pictures. I also need help with changing the topography sizes as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Daily Creates<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My daily creates consisted of recreating a classic album cover, making an event a national holiday and creating a poster for it, and writing a lyric from a song. The classic album cover took me some time as I had to create it in Pixlr and it took me some time to get the right picture and the right topography to match the original cover. Making the poster was pretty simple because I only had to grab a group of people hugging and add a tag line on it. I had no issues with looking up a song to add a lyric from it. This week&#8217;s daily creates were quite entertaining, but I had difficultly trying to figure out using Pixlr to format my picture correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>In conclusion, I learned in design to keep it clear. Keep it thoughtful. Most of all, keep it simple. So whether you\u2019re designing a home, poster, a product, or a public space, ask yourself:<br><strong>Is it balanced? Is it clear? Is it moving? And does it belong where it lives?<\/strong> <strong>Make it count<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week I learned a lot about &#8220;What is Design.&#8221; I gathered that good design isn\u2019t just about aesthetics, it\u2019s about clarity, purpose, and emotional connection. The Vignelli Canon provided so many tips to help me become a better designer. If you&#8217;re creating a website, a poster, or a physical space, certain timeless principles help [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12,8],"tags":[28,29],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections-assignments","category-summary-posts","category-visual-assignments","tag-designblitz","tag-week-5-summary-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}