Design elements are pretty common:

I have been asked via email what is the most important element of design? It’s kind of a broad question when making art (including fabric design, painters, sculptors, architecture, landscape designers, etc.) as ALL aspects of design need to work together to form a coherent WHOLE. If I made a huge quilt, think about 15’ x 15’ and it was entirely white with a 1” red square just north and west of the center, is it art? It could be. Is it good design? It could be. The question is not so much “Is it good design?" but rather what Degas said: “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

Some might wax poetic about the entire white area representing our lives from beginning to end, and the red square represents the moment we fell in love or had our heart broken for the first time. Or others think the square represents our tiny place is an unending universe. Or, or, or… The list of things it could mean is endless.

Where do I start teaching design? Start with what you already have preferences for: color. What is your favorite color? What color clothes do you buy? What color is your bedroom? Next, introduce “LINE” and ask students to start looking at lines we see every day but don’t really pay attention to: telephone poles, books or laptops, stairs in your house, windows and window frames, and cereal boxes in your pantry. Now ask yourself if these were the only two design elements, how might you combine them?

Beth