Figure, ground and balance: what stands out and which law rules

Grouping well is not enough. A piece can have clear groups and still fail: because nothing stands out, because the headline fights with the photograph behind it, because the whole seems about to tip over to one side or because two visual cues say opposite things. These are the problems that appear when you have already put things in order and, even so, the viewer does not know where to rest their eyes.

By the end of this lesson you will be able to decide which element is the protagonist and how to tone down the rest, balance a page with or without symmetry, group by movement in a presentation and, when two laws contradict each other, know which one weighs more and make them work in the same direction.

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Now check it with your own eyes. In the lab, each tab isolates one law; there are six of the seven, because common fate needs movement and is left out. Move the slider, press the buttons or tick the boxes, slowly, and stop at the exact point where the grouping appears or disappears: that threshold is the one you will have to clear with room to spare when you compose. Notice that you do not choose how what you see is organised; the change happens by itself, and it will happen the same way to your reader.

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Takeaways

• Attention holds one figure at a time: choose a protagonist and do not let the ground draw attention to itself.
• Clear symmetry or compensated asymmetry; what is "almost centred" reads as a mistake.
• What moves together is understood as a group: animate in the same way only what belongs together.
• When two laws contradict each other, the reader hesitates. Say what is important with two laws at once and always start with distance.