Color is the most relative medium in art
—Josef Albers

We all perceive light and color differently. What you see as red is different than what I see as red, though we’ll both call it red. How color affects us and how we react to it is also different for each of us. Color is relative.
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When you first come across a new design where does your eye go? What’s the first thing you see on the page? Where in the design is your attention drawn? The answer to all three questions is one of dominance.
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When your first impression of a design is positive, when you instinctively see the design as being good, it’s likely because one or more Gestalt principles of perception are at play. When you look at a design and admire one or two of it’s parts, it’s likely because those parts are adhering to one or more Gestalt principles.
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A house divided against itself cannot stand
—Abraham Lincoln

The house Lincoln was referring to was the United States of America shortly before the Civil War. As Lincoln put it, the country was half slave and half free. Two very different messages about what the country stood for. Lincoln further said about the country

It will become all one thing or all the other.

We know now which “all” the country did become and I hope we all agree the U.S. became the right “all.”

Lincoln’s point reaches beyond the socio-political climate of the time. A house, the United States, a design can not stand when divided. Every part must be working toward the same unified goal.

In design working toward the same unified goal is the idea of unity.
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