Overemphasising Minute Anomalies
nother very good concept to be aware of is the almost inbuilt predilection humans seem to have for overemphasising the tiniest linear and proportional anomalies found in every subject in every composition. It’s very important early in the layout to ignore them pretty much altogether and just concentrate on the larger shapes, curves, and lines on the whole and add the finer linear and proportional anomalies and idiosyncrasies much further down the developmental track (fig 1). It’s time to do it when up to the finer detail end of the project but beware even then of the endlessly tempting trap of overemphasis (perfect application of the “less is always more” principle). The human eye (and mind) can see a downright astonishing level of subtlety and it’s just oh-so-easy to overdo it. Error accumulates by nature so if a very slight bulge, curve, or bump in a particular line is overdone, by default there is less (not enough) room for the details on one side and more (too much) room on the other. It’s very common for a few tiny exaggerations in series to distort a whole section of the drawing. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have seen students scratching their heads with a drawing layout that they know isn’t
