Design is the underlying foundation of everything in life, so it is in art.
A much younger me pushed against this idea. I didn't like the restrictions, it made me feel claustrophobic. I just wanted to slap paint onto a canvas or let my pencil rage across the paper and indulge my instinctive nature. "Go with it" and find that elusive nirvana from the experience of flow. Art was the ultimate drug for me, it altered my conscience and took me to new plains of insight. Driven by the mood I quickly discovered how fickle my chemical brain was prone to be. Years later I finally made peace with the omniscience of design, and by exploring the formal principles of design I found a way to make my natural sub-conscious talents into conscious creativity. Over time, I discovered I could harness and guide my creative compulsions. It set me free.
This post is about a fundamental concept in design. Unity is one of the core formal principles and like most things in the art world does not mean the same as the casual use of the word in English. In design speak it means that a design, whether it's an image, a service, a product or a system, should have its elements or parts in harmonious relationships to the collective sum of the design. So that the user or viewer's experience is a seamless perception of the whole. It carries its own sense of order and completeness.
Here harmony mustn't be confused with the everyday meaning of the word. In design speak, something tumultuous can be in harmony, just like something ugly can be painted or rendered in an aesthetically beautiful way. Harmony, in design speak, means that the parts work together to create a complete and this is always to achieve an end effect.
For example, the united whole might feel disruptive and full of tension but still be a whole. Elements within the whole do not have to be equal to each other for them to be in harmony but they do need to work together to create unity or disrupt and create a new unity. Perhaps the aim is to disrupt and create unity based on tension. Where for some reason emphasis is needed on a particular aspect of the whole or contrast is needed. In this case, Unity based on tension creates a new harmonious whole. A new unity where tension is the over-arching theme and the perception of the design might purposefully feel fragmented.
I think emphasising that design always has an aim is needed here. All design has desired outcomes. If the aim of something is murky and not well worked out then this will be reflected in the design. At times we are working on designs with a lot of complexity and these designs can still achieve Unity perhaps it takes a global view of the thing or portioning the elements into their own systems which connect to the bigger system. Regardless, a design is trying to achieve a goal and unity is better achieved if that goal is clear.
It's a lot easier finding information today in our information society. It's more difficult finding a roadmap than the information itself. After writing this post I searched for other thinkers in this area and found some interesting ideas. One of the key differences between my thoughts on Unity and some others is that I am saying that there can be an emphasis on some elements. Unity does not mean everything is the same visual weight. Though they can be the same visual weight they don't have to be. Unity is when the image plane or object is seen as a whole -even if there is an emphasis or tension between the parts. This is a very important difference.
So how do we manipulate and make something have UNITY? In Part 2 of "Exploring Unity" I will explain how using other formal principles (balance, movement, emphasis, visual economy, contrast, proportion and space) directly affects achieving Unity.
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