Scale is a large part of design, sometimes literally. In a very basic definition, scale is the deliberate sizing of individual elements.
Scale can help us make sense of designs and images. Think about if you were to draw a mouse next to an elephant, you’d probably draw the mouse much smaller than the elephant, which would help viewers instantly understand your drawing.
In this way, scale helps us make sense of things. But, scale doesn’t always have to be based on realism. You can size your elements dramatically large or small to create stunning effects and to signal which parts of your design are more important and which are less.
For example, check out this poster by Gabz Grzegorz Domaradzki for the movie Drive. In this poster, the lead character has been scaled up dramatically, drawing attention to him first, and the other faces second.
While this scale is not technically based on realism as people’s faces are generally the same size in real life (and Ryan Gosling is not a giant to my knowledge), the dramatic scaling up and down of faces helps viewers to get a quick grasp on each character’s level of importance in the film, as well as making for an effective design.
This scaling of elements to signal importance is often called ‘hierarchy’ which we’ll discuss more in depth later on, fear not! But, for the mean time, let’s look at an example that uses scale to signify importance.
This publication design by The Consult scales up certain statistics, information and numbers a lot to draw attention to those pieces of data over others.
Want some more tips and tricks for mastering scale in your designs? Check out these 5 creative ways to use scale in your designs.