5 Ways Fine Art Can Inspire Digital Design

As a fine art instructor, painter, and over-all-creator I’ve learned something very powerful about art in product design. I thoroughly believe you will be a better designer if you take into account some foundational principals of fine art, let’s jump right in.

Composition

In fine art there are many “rules” of composition. [Sidebar, for all of you modern art lovers, and believe me, I am one of you— don’t get too hung up on the word “rules”. These rules are of course fragile and can be broken, but they are also foundational cornerstones on which some of the most famous artists built their legacies. So just roll with it!]

Here are just some of these rules that can help in design:

The Golden Ratio also known as the Fibonacci sequence is a beautiful compositional tool for 2D art, as well as digital products. This ridiculous mathematical formula actually relates beautifully with visual art. I won’t go into the major details, jus know that the ratio numerically looks like this, 1.618033. But graphically you can see it below.

The very basic idea is that the point of focus should be found in the tight spiral and that everything else should lead up to it. This design style is frequently seen in desktop e-commerce sites, but can definitely be utilized in mobile designs, but particularly tablet products.

If you want to read more about using the golden ratio in digital design, the NN Group has a fantastic article here.

2. Color Theory

This will probably be no surprise to anyone reading this, but it’s absolutely worth a mention as it is extremely foundational in, pretty much, any form of art and design. First of all, if you do not have a color wheel at your desk, go buy one right now— yes, now. This tool is invaluable to helping you find complementary colors, grays, and color mixes.

When it comes to design we know that colors need to be limited, you will overwhelm the user if you try to use every color, and hue, of the rainbow. Pick a few complementary colors and various hues of those colors and you’ll be a lot better off.

Color psychology is also another topic worth mentioning. It is invaluable to memorize how each color has an effect on a person’s psychology so that you can choose colors that do not surprise your user. An app about mental health and finding happiness should not have a color scheme of black and red! But you already know that, because in some ways, it’s innate.

Do your research, understand what primary, secondary, and tertiary colors are, this will automatically make you a better designer! But please, for the love of God, whatever color you choose, choose a hue that’s easy on the eye, limit color brightness, and go for hues often found in nature.

If you’re using any of these in your products change it now (unless they are meant for errors, or accessibility reasons)!

Try these instead!

3. Rule Of Thirds

Another common compositional rule is the rule of thirds, this is probably most commonly used in photography. The rule of thirds dictates that objects of greatest importance should be placed at the intersecting lines when your image is divided into 9 squares or rectangles. The thought is that the eye is automatically conditioned to focus on these points in an image and therefore the important stuff should be there.

You can use a single intersection (like in the wolf photo) to really embrace one focus, but when it comes to design, you’ll likely be utilizing 2-4 of the intersections as you probably have more than one important element on your website or app.

This rule can be used along with visual hierarchy to determine great placement of important elements.

4. Contrast

One of the greatest points fine artists like to make is the use of light and dark to draw the viewers attention. This concept of differing values proposes that the viewer’s eye is drawn to the brightest part of a painting or work of art.

When it comes to design this changes a little, especially in the sense that a vast majority of digital products use white as the background and blank space, however, it still applies that anything laid on top of that white should contrast enough so that the eye is easily drawn to it.

Additionally, this is an extremely useful concept when designing for accessibility, the more contrast, the more easily things can be distinguished from one another.

5. Negative Space

I’m sure you can guess how this relates to product designers! The “white space” in design can be the same as “negative space”. The concept here is that negative space is essential in visual art. Negative space defines what is unimportant, so that the focus stands out. This is very similar to contrast, except for the fact that negative space can be any color and even include subtle pattern or design.

“White space” isn’t always white. The most important thing to note here is that negative space is everything outside of your essential elements and can be used intelligently to separate, and highlight useful bits of information. You need plenty of negative/white space so that elements do not become crowded or lost.