Principles of Design - Proportion

When flower show judges judge an arrangement, they are supposed to look at the amount of plant material in relation to the container, the height of an arrangement relative to its width, and the whole design relative to its allotted space. The height of the plant material in an arrangement is supposed to be twice the height of the vase. By those standards, the proportions of my arrangement were rather eccentric.

The show was held in a school library and this arrangement was at the end of the checkout counter, so the space between the counter and the ceiling was the "allotted space". The most effective aspect of this arrangement was the way that it towered over all of the people. For humans, man is the measure of all things. We see something as large or small in relation to ourselves. Everything that humans create is on a human scale. Our sense of proportion is always connected with our own bodies.

When thinking about proportion, we should also be thinking about scale. The arrangement in the photo was created using three containers - all synergistic arrangements must be use at least three containers. The two containers on the left side of the photo are dominated by bright red Crocosmia 'Lucifer' flowers - the tallest stems soar to at least 5 feet. The third container had a single short stem of this flower, but it mainly contained yellow flowers. The taller flowers are a species Peruvian lily (Alstromeria aurantiaca) and the shorter are are Saint John's Wort (a bush hypericum). The photo was taken early in the morning and the hypericum buds were fully open a few hours later, but the proportion of yellow to red was not very effective. In my previous article on balance, I said that if I had added tall yellow crocosmia to the red, the design would have been better balanced; it also would have improved the proportions because the amount of red was almost equal to the amount of yellow. The design needed about a third more yellow and it needed all of it in the upper part of the arrangement. When judging proportions, we are comparing the amount of one element with that of other elements. Equal proportions can be confusing. In this particular arrangement, our eyes keep asking us if the arrangement is yellow accented with red or vice-versa.