Why Web Design is like a Good Flower Arrangement

While I was in college I worked at a dried floral and gift shop in Gardner Village. I was fortunate to work with awesome people that wanted to share their knowledge with a young designer. One of the most important lessons in floral design is to make sure you get the three elements accounted for:

Focus • Line • Fill

• Focus is the main flower in the arrangement, these are usually big and colorful.
• Line is grass or sticks or something else that has strong lines to keep the eye moving around the design.
• Fill is the smaller grass or fern or small flowers used to fill in the rest of the design.

Sometimes you build the focus first, tucking other elements around where they will fit, other times you start with fill to build structure then position focus at the end.

This is very similar to web design — where focus is generally large photos, line is the structure of the page and fill is the type.

This work includes the photo “Floral Art – Leo Mendes” available under a Creative Commons Attribution license, © marcusrg.
This work includes the photo “24621 Church Door Floral Decorations Mothers’ Day 2011” available under a Creative Commons Attribution license, © bsabarnowl.
This work includes the photo “traditional arrangement” available under a Creative Commons Attribution license, © ijokhio.