Dondis’s paper provides a really thorough overview of elements of visual design, and how these elements are interconnected (a line as a series of dots, a shape being described by a line, etc.). I particularly found it interesting the way that Dondis pointed out that certain elements, such as movement and dimension, are more often implied than they are actually expressed in the visual mode.

Tone: I was particularly drawn to Dondis’s description of tone because of the way that she highlighted how we are unconsciously sensitive to the monochromatic values of environment. Being so used to seeing our world in color, tone is something that I rarely think about in my surroundings, but our unconscious sensitivity to it makes complete sense when I think about how easy it is to distinguish forms in a black and white photograph. Also, I was intrigued by Figure 3.26 and 3.27, the two color scales, which clearly demonstrated the more dramatic variations in tone that we see when two shades are contrasted with one another.

Line: I loved Dondis’s explanation of dots as the building block of a line, and how a line can simply be defined as a dot in motion or the history of a dot’s movement. This made me question whether we can actually tell where the line started (where the first dot was placed) versus where it ended (where the last dot was placed). I also appreciated the explanation of how each element serves as a tool, specifically how a line is a tool for notation systems. I agree with the fact that lines hold tremendous energy and character, and they can be so different from one another depending on their looseness v rigidity, thickness v thinness, etc.