Design Fundamentals

The geometry of design — point, line, plane and volume (Ching's primary elements; Kandinsky's expressive reading); the elements of design — line, shape, form, texture, colour, value and space; positive and negative space; and how the same vocabulary scales across buildings, interiors and products. The difference between an element and a principle.

The principles that arrange the elements — balance (symmetrical, asymmetrical, radial), emphasis and hierarchy, contrast, repetition, rhythm and pattern, movement, gradation, proportion and scale, variety and unity. Composition — grids, positive/negative space, the rule of thirds, centre of interest and lessons from photography. The golden ratio taught honestly (Markowsky). The Gestalt principles of perception.

The colour wheel (primary, secondary, tertiary); the three dimensions — hue, value and intensity; tints, shades, tones and complementary neutralisation; colour schemes (monochromatic, analogous, complementary, split-complementary, triadic); the colour systems — the artists' RYB wheel (Itten/Goethe), Munsell (hue/value/chroma), additive RGB and subtractive CMY; and colour psychology read critically (warm/cool, spatial effects, cultural contingency, Elliot & Maier).

What anthropometry is; static (structural) versus dynamic (functional) measurement; percentiles (5th, 50th, 95th) and the design rules — clearance to the 95th, reach to the 5th, adjustability across the range; standard human dimensions for activities, circulation, furniture and space, flagged as conventions or code-governed ranges; and the Indian-specific data (Chakrabarti, NID) that Western datasets overstate.

Ergonomics as fitting the task to the human; the relationship between anthropometrics (measurement) and ergonomics (application); the three domains — physical, cognitive and organisational; application to furniture, tools, fixtures and materials; Norman's human-factors principles (affordance vs signifier, mapping, feedback, constraints); and Daniels's 'no average person' — why we design for the range.