WAHID ONLINE

One interesting way of creating emphasis in a composition is through the use of proportion. Proportion is a principle of design that has to do with differences in the scale of objects. If we place an object in an environment that’s of larger or smaller scale than the object itself, that object will appear larger or smaller than it does in real life. This difference in proportion draws viewers’ attention to the object, as it seems out of place in that context.

In Figure 1.22, I’ve taken my monkey and superimposed him over the skyline of Manhattan to prove my point. Between the sharp contrast in color, and the difference in proportion, your brain immediately says, “Hey, something’s not right here,” and you’re left staring at the monkey until you force yourself to look away.

Figure 1.22: Proportion—a monkey in Manhattan

This principle works for miniaturization as well. If you take a look at my personal web site, Jasongraphix, pictured in Figure 1.23, one of the first things you might notice on the page is the mini-me leaning against my artwork just under the logo. As with the I want one! Button on Woot, this little guy stands out because of contrast and isolation, but also because of the eye-catching use of proportion.

Figure 1.23: Jasongraphix my personal site, featuring mini-me!

A few standard HTML tags and CSS properties have been designed to take advantage of the preceding theories to create emphasis in a web page even without customization. For isolation of content consider the block quote element. This element indents the left- and right-hand side of any text placed within it, purposely breaking the continuation lines of the page content and drawing attention to itself. For positioning, consider the position property in CSS. By absolutely positioning an object with CSS, you take it out of the low of its containing block, so you can place it strategically to draw attention. And when you think about contrast, think about the blink tag. Just kidding! Don’t ever think about the blink tag. Yes, it creates contrast … over and over and over again. Please don’t use it. Don’t get any ideas about using a marquee tag either. Design is just as much about what we leave out as it is about what we put in.

Next, we’ll look at some well-tested examples of designs from which you can work.