9th Grade — Elements & Principles of Design: Balance

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

Look at the "Balance" section of our reference chart. Find one object in the room that shows this concept.

🎯 Today's Big Question

What is balance, and how do designers use it on purpose?

📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To

Define balance using the class Elements & Principles of Art reference chart.
Identify balance in at least 2 real design/art examples.
Create three small thumbnail sketches, one for each type of balance, using the same 3 shapes.

🧰 What You'll Need

Elements & Principles of Art reference chart (posted/handout)
Drawing paper
Pencils, erasers
Colored pencils, markers, or crayons
Rulers

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: Understanding Balance

Do Now (5 min): find one object in the room that shows today's concept.
Mini-lesson (10 min): define balance using the reference chart and 2-3 real examples.
Guided sketch (10 min): as a class, sketch a quick shared example showing balance. Independent studio time, part 1 (18 min): begin your own paper piece exploring balance.
Quick check-in (2 min): show a neighbor where you're starting.

Day 2: Finishing & Critique

Do Now (5 min): explain balance in your own words, no notes. Studio time, part 2 (25 min): finish your paper piece, applying balance intentionally throughout.
Self-critique (3 min): before posting your work, write your own "I notice / I wonder" sentence about it.
Gallery walk & peer feedback (10 min): post finished work; using the "I notice / I wonder" protocol, leave one specific sticky note on a classmate's piece naming exactly how they used balance, not just a compliment.
Written artist statement (5 min): 1-2 sentences on how you used balance, and whether the feedback you received matched your own self-critique.

🖨️ Print Your Handout

Word, picture, and definition for today's vocabulary, plus a place to write and draw. Available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese.

Day 1: EN · ES · FR · AR · ZH
Day 2: EN · ES · FR · AR · ZH

🖥️ Today's Slide Deck

Short, on-the-board pacing slides — project these to follow along. (The full details are in the handout above, not here.)

Day 1

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

Day 2

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

📚 Key Words

Balance: The impression of equilibrium in a composition -- symmetrical, asymmetrical, or radial.
Composition: The overall arrangement of elements and principles within a piece of design or art.

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Finished piece scored with a simple rubric: correctly demonstrates balance, shows effort/craftsmanship, and includes the 1-2 sentence artist statement.

Exit Ticket: In 1-2 sentences, explain how your piece uses balance on purpose.

📊 Before You Leave

Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.

Class Check-In

📤 How You Submit This — For Credit

Your physical projects don't stay in the classroom past the day you finish them -- you're responsible for your own completed work, the same way you'd be responsible for it in any job. The one exception is your class notebook: it has its own designated spot in the room (ask your teacher exactly where), and most students leave it there day to day -- but it's yours, so if you'd rather keep it with you or bring it home to study from, that's your call. Either way, always know where your own notebook actually is. Before a finished physical piece leaves your hands for good: ask your teacher for one of the classroom cameras, photograph your finished (or in-progress) work, then plug that camera's SD card into a classroom computer and upload the photo into your portfolio folder. That uploaded photo, with a short caption, IS your submission for credit -- the photo is what gets kept and graded, not the physical piece.

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week (e.g. every Friday, or your class's last meeting of the week), photograph or save your best finished or in-progress piece from that week into your portfolio folder (a physical folder for now, or a Google Drive folder once one is set up) with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, and one skill it shows. In Grade 10 this becomes your Google Sites portfolio -- keep adding to it weekly from here on so you're not trying to reconstruct a whole semester of work at the end.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Elements & Principles of Design: Balance.” This project asked: “What is balance, and how do designers use it on purpose?” I used Balance by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

🎓 ACP Exam Prep

This lesson connects to the Photoshop Adobe Certified Professional exam: Domain 1: Working in the Design Industry

🔗 Want to Learn More?

Elements & Principles of Art reference chart (Project ARTiculate)

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: The same equilibrium concept Physics studies in center of mass and Chemistry studies in balanced equations.

Career Connection: Visual balance is a daily judgment call in every career on this site, most explicitly tested in Web Design layout work.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Design two versions of the same poster — one symmetrical, one asymmetrical — and write a short comparison of when each works better. Start here: design the symmetrical version first, since it's the easier baseline, then deliberately break it to build the asymmetrical version.
Illustrate a physics or chemistry balance concept (a lever, a balanced equation) using visual symmetry to reinforce the idea. Start here: pick one specific concept, like a lever or a balanced equation, and sketch its unbalanced starting state before you create the balanced design.