Delesign Digest: Compositional Flow

Delesign Digest

Amplifying Your Marketing Impact One Insight at a Time

Design Principle of the Day: Compositional Flow

Despite investing in eye-catching visuals and compelling copy, your message still fails to resonate with your audience. Many marketers struggle with this all-too-common issue. The information is all there, but your audience skims over it or misses it altogether.

Take a look at this: 

Initial Poster Design Attempt

The information is all there, but the viewer's eye doesn't know where to focus first. The design lacks purposeful flow and hierarchy, causing a disjointed and confusing experience.

Applying Compositional Flow

Designers use a principle called "compositional flow" to address this problem. Compositional flow governs the intuitive journey a viewer's eye takes through your piece. By strategically controlling visual hierarchy and using focal points, designers dictate precisely where someone looks first, where their gaze lingers, and the logical order of how elements are consumed.

Putting Compositional Flow into Practice

Now take a look at how applying compositional flow transforms the same poster:

With the designer using a Z-style compositional flow to guide the eyes into skimming across all the content on the poster.  Your work takes on an almost hypnotic quality that captivates from start to finish. The viewer can effortlessly absorb and digest the messaging because the entire visual experience has been choreographed.

Other compositional flow techniques that you can use:

• Diagonal lines to create dynamic movement

• Repeating lines for rhythm

• Incorporating human figures looking towards a focal point to direct attention naturally. 

These methods ensure you take advantage of human psychology in guiding users to see what you want them to.

Next time you get a marketing asset designed, think about putting compositional flow into practice. Keep refining your work, and you'll see your message become clearer and more impactful.

Design with purpose, design for impact!

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