Some people seem to have been born knowing creative design principles. Others, maybe you included, have to struggle to develop even the tiniest creative skills they do have. One thing is for certain, you can learn to be more creative. And you can discover the creative design ideas that other artists use for inspiration, even if you were not born with a single creative bone in your body.

There are several principles of design you must consider when you begin to learn the creative design process. These principles give an over riding basis on how your design elements will interact with one another, in your artwork and your designs. Each one influences the others in an endless tug-of-war within your mind and on your creative canvas. Your challenge is to learn to create harmony out of all these principles in your artwork, and to give your designs that unique blend that can only come from within you.

The creative design principles are…

Balance
Rhythm
Dominance
Unity

Now, let us look at each principle as it relates to your creativity and your designs.

Balance is the arrangement of different design elements, on any given piece of artwork, so that there is an equal distribution of visual weight to the whole piece. Art that doesn’t have balance can leave the viewer uneasy, almost as if there is something wrong with the piece.

Rhythm has to do with repeating elements and patterns in your designs. It also involves variations on those patterns to provide freshness, and to keep your art from becoming boring. Repetition can help to unify a piece, or bring different parts of your artwork together. It can also provide the basic textures for your design work.

Dominance refers to emphasizing certain parts of your design so that they get noticed first. Every piece of artwork needs a focal point which determines where your eyesight goes first, when you look at it. If you do not have a focal point your viewer quickly loses interest. Having too many points of interest will also leave the viewer with no place to focus. There are many ways to emphasize parts of your design, but the most important point is to select your focus based on your main message and, secondly, in consideration of whom your audience will be.

Unity is the final aspect in design, which gives a feeling that all the elements belong together. Unifying a piece can involve using various elements, including matching colors, shapes, textures, groupings, weights, typographies, or sizes. Unity, in your art, is the overall feeling that brings your piece together, and gives it wholeness or variety, whichever you are trying to convey to the viewer.

When you consider each of these design principles, while creating your artwork, they will have an impact on everything you create and do in your piece. No matter where your creativity takes you, if you will try to incorporate balance, rhythm, dominance, and unity into your artwork, you will be building on the solid basics of creative design.

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Two websites that I think are worthy of checking out this week…

• Open Source Web Design
• Design By Humans

Open Source Web Design - URL: www.oswd.org

This is great site to get inspired, browse and download free web design templates.Perhaps, more importantly, it allows you to share your designs with others. Currently, they boast 2080 web designs to browse and download at no cost. I often browse around the site when I need to get inspired and feeling creatively challenged - good source for design ideas. Francis Skettino founded the site in September 2000 with a goal “to provide the Open Source community with quality web designs to help get people’s projects on the web in a way that is both organized and good looking.” You will find all types of sites from personal blogs, to content management systems to full fledged businesses.

The site is definitely worth a look go check them out at www.oswd.org

Design By Humans - URL: www.designbyhumans.com

I found this site posted on Open Source Web Designs site - I thought it was worth a mention and a good example of the ideas that can be found at the Open Source Web Design site. I think Design By Humans is a neat concept - “a community centered around t-shirt designs” - with a twist. Created to provide “a place for people to submit, discover and buy amazing custom t-shirt designs created by artists from around the world.” The cool part of the concept is that the site is based around an “ongoing t-shirt design contest”. Headquartered in Irvine California the site was officially launched in July 2007. This is another site that should provide some inspiration when you find yourself at a loss for creativity.

Worthy of a look see at: www.designbyhumans.com

Wow! I can’t believe October is winding down and soon we will be into November and the end of year holidays. For me, this time of year is the busiest and I can sometime have the tendency to lose focus on my initial goals for the year (have you reached all the goals you set for yorself this year?). Anyway, one of my goals for Designer’s Mind is to build the most complete list of design resouces. 

I was recently inspired by Steven from VandelayDesign who has put together an excellent list of resources for web deigners. He includes image pickers, fonts, CSS layouts, dead link checkers, color pickers and many more - 77 resources to be exact. I hope to build on Steven’s list over the next 30 - 60 days. I am hoping that you will help and contribute to our list.

Also, you may want to peak at Jason Bartholme’s blog - a great blog for resources, including a list of 70+ JavaScript Resources for Every Web Developer

I look forward to your comments…

Basecamp < Created by 37 Signals

ActiveCollab < Free Alternative to BaseCamp

DotProject < Another Free Tool

Absolutely Freetime < Time Tracking

SugarCRM - Free CRM Management Tool.

… and the good old GMail and Google Docs.

Got More? Post em in the comments.

No designer’s arsenal is complete without a Rolodex of Stock Photo Sites. Here’s my list of Top Sites –

Free Sites -

SXC.hu - The Big Daddy of Free Stock Photo Sites.
MorgueFile.com
ImageAfter.com
FreePhotosBank.com
FreeMediaGoo.com
OpenPhoto.net
UnProfound.com
ImageBase
FreeRangeStock.com

yotophoto.com - Meta Search Engine. Credit - Eli.

Nearly Free -

iStockPhoto.com
stockxpert.com
dreamstime.com

Got more? Post em below.