Design Nomenclature / Composition
Repetition
Also called reprise
The reuse of an element across a composition or a body of work. Repetition builds unity and lets a reader stop re-decoding what they have already decoded. It produces rhythm only when the intervals between instances are themselves regular; without interval it is inventory, not rhythm.
Not to be confused with
- RhythmRecurrence at intervals the eye can feel. Regular rhythm repeats one interval, alternating rhythm swaps between two, progressive rhythm changes the interval by a rule. What is felt is the interval, not the element — which is why spacing carries rhythm and ornament does not.
- UnityThe condition of a composition reading as one thing rather than an assembly of parts, produced by repetition, alignment, proximity, and a deliberately limited vocabulary. Unity on its own is monotony; the counterweight is variety — enough difference to hold attention without breaking the whole.