Use of design in a display
If you decide to use a design in your display the next step is to decide what type of design you want to use. There are two main types. Design as a background and design with the artifacts
Use of design as a background has many advantages. They include;
1. By using different colors to make a design you can place your artifacts on a color that will highlight them and keep them from being lost. If you put a white artifact on a white background it will be very hard to see.
2. It breaks the display into sections when you are arranging artifacts. When it comes to arranging artifacts large areas can be very frustrating. You have this large blank sheet and you are trying to find the best way to place your artifacts. With the use of design you break it into manageable section. You do one section at a time and it will be less overwhelming.
3. It gives you the freedom to design a great and complete display with only a few or many artifacts. This is a great benefit, but can also be a pitfall for this type of design. Say you only have a few artifacts and are doing a display of Pueblo artifacts. You could do a design of Kokopelli within the background and use only a few artifacts to bring the display together. This way you have a completed display that is very appealing and ties in the artifacts together. The pitfall for this type of design is that sometime you design on that is very intricate and detailed. The more sections you have withing a design the larger the frame has to be and the fewer artifact will fit and you may limit the size of artifacts that can fit in a given section.
<*> Click here for more information on how to put a background display together and different materials you can use.
You may also set up a design within the artifacts themselves on a solid background. Many people like this type of design. I will go into greater detail on this type of display in the arranging artifacts section.
The use of design in an artifact display is a very controversial topic. Some experts say that any design withing a display detracts from the artifacts. While others say that use a design keeps an artifact display even and balanced.
Lets touch on a little psychology now. The brain is an organ keeps track of thins and helps us live. Think of everything you know. The brain is responsible for not only storing this information, but knowing where it is stored. Have you ever had the answer to a question "on the tip of your tongue" this happens when the brain know the information is stored, but not sure where it is at. To keep this from happening very often the brain is a very organized and neat. When information is processed Where is all this going you ask? Well, it makes sense then that the brain likes to keep things in order. When you look at something the brain will look for a pattern or an order so it may process what it is seeing. When something is random with no pattern or design the brain has a hard time remembering it later on.
I think you've guessed now that I use patterns in almost all my displays. Proper use of design will bring the display together and give the ye a place to rest on while the brain is processing the information. This within itself gives your displays an advantage. people who see them will be able to remember your displays. This is what makes a great display, people remembering and talking about them.
There is another reason using a design. A display should be balanced from top to bottom and left to right. In addition to patterns, the brain like balance. If you have more and larger artifacts on the left and fewer and smaller artifacts on the right, people will end up tilting their heads to the right when looking at the display. This is a normal response to a display that is not balances. The exception to this is if you used the larger bigger points in the bottom of the display and fewer smaller artifacts on the top of the display. The brain would recognize the pattern in this and would have no problems with it.
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