Design Basics Series: Emphasis

When you walk into a room, your eyes immediately scan the space and rest on elements that attract attention.

Emphasis is the design principle that deals with the dominance of area of interests, or focal points. If you want to achieve an effective, engaging design, you should aim to have a coexistence of dominant and subordinate elements to draw the eye around the interior.

Imagine walking into a room with white ceiling, white walls, white floorboards and, in the middle, a white square table with four white rectangular chairs. Pretty boring, don’t you think?

Now imagine making a few simple changes to the room:

you paint the chairs in bright red, move table, and chairs to the left side of the room, and hang a red pendant above the table;
you take a white wooden sideboard, the texture of the wood showing through the paint, and place it in the right part of the room, with a red vase on top of it;
you hang on the wall a series of pictures with white frames of similar size but different shape, arranging them in a line that starts from the area where the table is, then run towards the sideboard and finishes exactly above it;
you place a white, curvy easy chair with a red circular coffee table and a table lamp by the wall opposite the sideboard.

Now when you enter the room and your eyes scan the space, they first go to the dining table & red chairs on the left, then follow the line created by the picture frames towards the sideboard, stop at the red vase, take in the rough texture of the sideboard, then travel again towards the rounded chair and red coffee table. Much more interesting, isn’t it?

A room that has no dominant element is bland and tedious, like the white room of the example. Once you introduce a focal point (the dining area) and a few visual accents (red vase, textured sideboard, round armchair with red table) you create an effective design and engage the eyes in an interesting tour of the interior.

Some architectural features are naturally dominant: fireplaces, windows with beautiful views, spiral or sculptural stairways. An architectural focal point makes it easy for you to design the interior, because you already have a starting point. In the example of the fireplace, you can reinforce its visual emphasis by grouping furniture around it, and hanging a large painting or mirror above it, then go on placing your chosen visual accents around the room.

In the absence of dominant architectural features, you first need to decide which element you want to make dominant, and then enhance its visual emphasis using contrast. Contrast introduces change in the normal pattern of the composition, creating interest and drawing the eye:

Contrast of scale. An object of unusual size – either very small, or very big – immediately draws attention to itself .For example, an oversized chair placed at one end of a dining table will immediately become a focal point.
Contrast of colour. This is a very simple way to create emphasis, as shown in the example of the imaginary white room, where introducing red immediately makes an element stand out.
Contrast of shape. In the white room, where the prevalent shape is rectangular/square, the rounded easy chair and coffee table draw the eye, becoming secondary visual accents.
Contrast of orientation/placement. In the white room, moving the dining table off centre creates visual interest. You can also create emphasis by placing elements around a centre point, isolating an element from others (especially in asymmetric compositions), or placing the element at the end of a linear sequence.
Contrast of texture. The introduction of the sideboard, with its rich texture created by the veins of the wood, adds interest to the white room.
Contrast of light. Remember that light can enhance the visual importance of a dominant element. Spotlights are very good to create emphasis, because they illuminate a limited area creating a dramatic contrast of light and shadow. In the example of the white room, the pendant creates a pool of light over the table, and the table lamp adds another pool of light by the easy chair.

Keep in mind that while an interior with no emphasis is monotonous and boring, too many dominant elements that compete for attention create a chaotic, cluttered composition. To retain a harmonious design, choose one, maximum two focal points (if the size of the room allows it), and a few subordinate visual accents.

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Although this post on emphasis concludes the series of articles about design elements and principles, I’ll keep sharing tips and ideas that can help you create the house of your dreams, so stay tuned!

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Image source: Bolig Magasinet