Composition and layout

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Focal point and eye path

Lesson 14 of 27 in Composition and layout.

Creating Focal Points And Visual Paths · ArtOfSoulburn
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Reading is not a smooth sweep. Louis Émile Javal observed in 1879 that the eye moves along a line of text in a series of short stops and quick jumps, and the jumps are called saccades en.wikipedia.org. The stops are where seeing happens. Everything you know about a page was assembled from a few dozen of them.

A colour lithograph poster. A woman in a black dress and wide hat sits in the foreground in near-silhouette; behind her a man in a top hat with a yellow face and red beard leans towards her; on the stage beyond, a singer in long black gloves is cut off above the shoulders by the edge of the picture. Hand-lettered text reads Divan Japonais, 75 rue des Martyrs, and Ed Fournier directeur.
Toulouse-Lautrec's poster for the Divan Japonais cabaret. The woman in black is placed so the eye lands on her first, then travels to the stage.Divan Japonais. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, colour lithograph, 1893.Wikimedia Commons/Public domain
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  1. Question 1, locked

    What sets where a reader looks first?

    • The strongest contrast on the page
    • The top left corner, always
    • The largest block of text
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “A short stop, during which the eye is still and actually sees.”

    • Exception
    • Isolation
    • Fluid canvas
    • Fixation
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The fast jump between one fixation and the next. You are effectively blind during it.”

    • Golden ratio
    • Scale
    • Entry point
    • Saccade

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