Design Nomenclature / Composition
Dominance
- Composition
- 2D & 3D
This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.
The condition of one element carrying more weight than everything else in the field, so the composition has an unambiguous first. Dominance is a property of the whole and can be checked by comparison. Every field has one, or fails to, whether or not anyone chose it.
In practice
Emphasis is what you do; dominance is what results. A composition can have three emphasized elements and, in consequence, no dominance at all.
Not to be confused with
- EmphasisThe deliberate raising of one element above the field — by contrast, isolation, scale, placement, or the direction of the forms around it. The element so raised is the focal point. Emphasis works by difference from a settled field, so it cannot be applied to everything at once.
- HierarchyThe ordering of a composition's parts by intended attention, expressed through weight, scale, position, and space. A hierarchy is a claim about what matters, made visible; it works when a viewer can rank the parts without reading them. Each level added weakens every level already there.