Member-only story
7 visual elements of design
and how to use them in digital design
Visual elements are the building blocks of art and design. There are 7 visual elements in total, they are line, shape, color, value, form, texture, and space. In this article, we’ll cover each element on its own as well as how to use them in your designs.
No matter what you are designing, you are likely to use at least one, if not several of these visual elements. We’ll go into detail about each of these visual elements as well as examples of how you might use them in UI and web design.
1. Line
From icons to illustrations, charts, and beyond, lines are an essential element in web design. Lines can be thin, bold, dashed, black, or in color. There’s so much variability you can achieve with line, let’s take a look at a few examples.
The line art or simple illustrations included in this app design mockup are simple yet highly expressive. By using a hand-drawn line with varied textures, this visual element gives the design a different vibe. If the line was a monoline with even size and no texture, it would give an entirely different mood to the design.
Notice how lines are used in this app design mockup, in contrast to the previous example. The lines are even in thickness, some are black while others are in a light shade of pink and used to add movement to the illustrated scene.
Another common and important way to use lines as a visual element in web design is for icons. Icons are vital in helping guide the user experience. With one icon, you’re able to replace words and language and simplify an action to one simple icon for a universal meeting. An example of this is a home button. When we see an icon resembling a house somewhere in the app we are using, we know that clicking on this icon will bring us back to the home or dashboard experience.
