Key principles of design - Elements and Principles of Design - page 56

Figure 57. Proportional placement of colour.
The strategic use of visually dominant elements within an image or design can set up a
'path' that the eye follows when its attention is drawn from one visually dominant element
to another. This occurs because the human eye has the tendency to notice and focus on ob-
jects that are bright or feature movement, relative to context. Called the fixational reflex , it
has been suggested that this occurs because the object attracting attention contrasts strongly
with its surroundings and is therefore deemed significant during normal vision, indicating
that cognitive processing occurs in tandem with visual perception 50 .
The strategic placement of pink in the poster for Color Me Kubrick (2005) attracts attention
and draws the eye around the poster from the word 'not' at top down to the insert word
'me' and on to the pink glasses, necktie, tagline, champagne glass and back up to the film
title.