Decide whether you wish to express action or repose in your composition. According to Luptin and Phillips, "Asymmetrical designs are generally more active" than symmetrical work.
Select a symmetrical design if you wish to express a sense of calm or repose. A symmetrical design will repeat patterns, forms, colors, or textures on opposite sides of a composition.
Select an asymmetrical design if you wish to express action or movement in your design. Asymmetrical designs tend to be unbalanced unless you equally distribute the visual weight of your composition. For instance, if a tiny ball of bright yellow string appears at the top of your composition, you will need to position a larger object with a lower degree of chroma at the bottom to create balance
Select colors and shapes to provide the balance you want. Red, blue and yellow are the 3 primary colors. Combinations of these three produce the secondary colors: purple, green and orange.
The color halfway around a color wheel from a color is known as its complement. Blue is the complement of orange, and yellow is purple's complement. Complements stand out when placed near each other. For instance, bright yellow text on a field of purple will appear so intense that the words will remain before you even when you close your eyes.
Adjacent colors on the wheel will create a neutral composition, whereas browns tend to unify other colors.
The intensity, or chroma, of a color will determine how much visual weight it receives. Imagine two circles of equal size on opposite sides of a canvas, one blue and the other orange. If the circles have the same color intensity, your eye will be drawn equally to each side. Imagine the blue circle fading in chroma to a near-white color. Your eye will now be drawn to the orange circle, and in order to create balance, the blue circle will have to become larger than the orange. The higher a color's chroma, the more visual weight it will receive.
Select the amount of light and shadow to aid balance. Dark shades next to light objects will create the illusion of depth. Objects with depth will have more visual weight than seemingly flat objects. Imagine a flat blue circle next to a sphere shaded for an illusion of three dimensions.
Select or omit textures to adjust balance. Objects with texture will carry more weight than flat objects. Imagine a flat blue circle and another filled with bright orange fur; the circle with the furry texture will draw your eye.
Consider what the focal point of your composition will be. The focal point, or the place where lines and objects seem to converge, will carry more weight than other areas of the composition.
Consider how you will use lines in your composition. Lines that cross or vary in width will draw more attention than straight, uniform lines. Some graphic designers, such as Robin Landa, author of "Graphic Design Solutions," describe this movement, "varying the type, direction, quality, and position of the lines" as visual or "design rhythm."
Decide on the significance of text in your design. In general, images such as photographs will receive more visual weight than text; however, text will receive more weight if the background color is neutral or has a low chroma.
Draw several sketches of your initial design and consider how the visual elements will be weighted.
Create a table that charts the visual elements within the design.
Create a finished design and flip the work to see if it appears to be weighted equally.