PSEB SS Commercial Art cheat sheet

Commercial art is applied art made to serve a commercial purpose: advertising, packaging, signage, print media, and product display; it is judged by communication effectiveness as well as aesthetics.

Elements of art: line, shape, form, colour, value, texture, and space. These are the raw ingredients of any layout or illustration.

Principles of design: balance, contrast, emphasis, rhythm, proportion, unity, and movement. Use them to organize the elements into a readable composition.

Colour theory: primary (red, yellow, blue in traditional pigment theory), secondary (orange, green, violet), tertiary mixes; complementary pairs sit opposite on the colour wheel and create maximum contrast.

Colour harmony schemes: monochromatic (one hue, varied value/saturation), analogous (adjacent hues), complementary, split-complementary, and triadic.

Colour psychology in advertising: warm hues (red, orange, yellow) advance and stimulate appetite/urgency; cool hues (blue, green) recede and suggest calm, hygiene, or trust.

Typography basics: type families are serif, sans-serif, script, and decorative; measure is line length, leading is line spacing, and kerning is space between individual letter pairs.

Layout rules: the rule of thirds, visual hierarchy (headline > subhead > body > logo), and generous negative space improve legibility and focus.

Print production essentials: CMYK is subtractive for print, RGB is additive for screens; resolution for print is typically 300 ppi at final size, and bleed is extra image beyond the trim edge.

Poster design sequence: define the message and audience, thumbnail several roughs, select one, develop a full-size rough, then produce the final artwork with correct margins and bleed.

Logo design criteria: simple, scalable, memorable, versatile across colour and monochrome, and legible at small sizes; avoid fine detail and gradients that fail in one-colour reproduction.

Lettering and calligraphy: draw guide lines (cap line, x-height, baseline, descender line) before letterforms; keep stroke weight consistent within a single alphabet style.

Drawing from observation: establish the overall proportion and axis first with light construction lines, then refine contour, then add value; never start with detail.

Perspective: one-point uses a single vanishing point for a frontal view; two-point uses two vanishing points on the horizon for a corner view; three-point adds a vertical vanishing point for height.

Rendering value: use a consistent light source; build a value scale from highlight through mid-tone, core shadow, reflected light, to cast shadow to give volume.

Packaging design practicalities: consider dieline structure, panel hierarchy (front panel sells, back panel informs), shelf impact, and legal information placement.

Ad layout practice: use a grid to align elements, keep one dominant focal point, and check the design in thumbnail size to test whether the hierarchy still reads.

Studio workflow: work from thumbnail to rough to comprehensive to final, keep a portfolio of stages, and proof colour against a physical proof rather than the monitor alone.