PROXIMITY

The principle of Alignment state that you group related items together.

In beginners' designs, the words and phrases and graphics are strung out all over the place, filling corners and taking up a lot of room (bandwidth). Maybe when we were all beginners, we all had a fear of empty space. Scattered pieces of designs are often unorganized and the information isn't instant.

When several items are in close proximity to each other, they become one visual unit rather than several separate units. In plainer English, you can relate proximity with relationship.

When you group similar elements into one unit, several things happen. The page becomes more organized.

Here's an example:

		Look at how the text seem to have been "tossed on the page. Where do you begin reading? Where do you end? Do your eyes wonder around to make sure you didn't miss anything?
		Pose the same questions to this card. Can you see why these elements are grouped as so? You eyes should not wonder about this card.

You are probably already using the principle of proximity in your work. However, you may not be pushing it as far as you could to make it effective.

Here are some additional tips on proximity:

If there are too many separate items, see which ones should be set closer to each other.

If there are areas on the page where the organization is not perfectly clear, see if items are in proximity that shouldn't be.

Scrutinize your pages and see which items should be grouped together.

Don't stick things in the corners and in the middle.

Avoid leaving equal amounts of white space between elements unless each group is part of a subset.

The views and/or images displayed on this page are not endorsed nor encouraged by the sorority at large.