What Is Radial Balance? Examples and Best Practices

You may have a strong sense of what looks good, but do you know whyit looks good? The truth is, there’s more to brand aesthetics than personal preferences. Behind every visually striking asset is a solid understanding of marketing design principles, including radial balance—a strategy for creating visual harmony by distributing equal weight around a center point.

For ecommerce brands competing for a viewer’s attention online, understanding this fundamental principle can help create assets that are both eye-catching and effective—directing users’ attention exactly where you want it. This article examines the concept of radial balance, explores different types of balance, and offers tips on how to create radial balance in graphic design for effective marketing materials

What is radial balance?

Radial balance, also known as radial symmetry, is a design technique where many elements are evenly arranged around a focal point—creating movement and guiding the viewer’s eye to the center point of the image. With 62% of consumers reporting feeling overwhelmed by marketing, radial balance is one way to ensure your designs are clear, valuable, and visually appealing.

A naturally occurring pattern in the world around us—think of a seashell’s spiral, a blooming rose, or a spiderweb—this type of visual balance is considered attractive to the human eye. Once you start looking for it, you’ll notice deliberate radial balance all across the marketing world: from circular logos to lifestyle photography. The examples below, from Pela Case, Madre Mezcal, and Goodee, illustrate how radial balance creates visual interest and symmetry. 

3 types of balance

To identify radial balance, it helps to know how this fundamental principle differs from other forms of compositional balance, including symmetrical or asymmetrical balance. The most important differentiators are how a composition’s visual weight is distributed and where it guides the viewer’s attention in each type of balance. 

Radial balance

In radial balance, all the elements radiate outward from a center point, distributing equal visual weight in every direction. If you rotate the composition around its center, each section will roughly mirror the others—drawing the human eye toward the center of the design and creating a sense of visual balance.

Symmetrical balance

In symmetrical balance, the forms are evenly distributed on either side of a vertical or horizontal line. If you fold a composition with symmetrical arrangement in half, both sides will be nearly identical with elements the same size and shape, creating a sense of stability and order.

Asymmetrical balance

In asymmetrical balance, different elements are intentionally uneven on either side of a vertical or horizontal line. If you fold this type of composition in half, one side will have more dominant or larger elements, and the other will contain fewer or smaller elements. This type of balance creates energy, tension, and visual interest without relying on perfect symmetry. 

You can see examples of all three types of balance in the images from the shoe brand Rothy’s.

Examples of radial balance

• Social media
• Logos
• Packaging
• Product photography

Radial design is all around us. Here are several great examples of how to use radial symmetry for your brand:

Social Media

You can use radial balance on social media posts to attract attention and keep viewers visually interested. For ecommerce brands, positioning your product as the center point or arranging your products around a center point can turn everyday items into artwork. 

In the social media examples below, objects like spools of ribbon, crudités, purses, and oysters are presented in a radial pattern. Other brands use natural symmetry in the world, such as a tunnel of trees in fall or the center cut view of a blueberry, to evoke balance and focus people’s eye on the center of the image. 

Logos

The human eye is naturally drawn to radial balance, which makes it a helpful principle for designing a memorable logo. In the example below, the symmetrical flower icon in the Mirai Clinical logo is an example of radial balance. If you cut across the artwork vertically or diagonally, each side will mirror the other. This is an effective choice for a personal care brand that needs to convey precision and restraint.

Packaging

Product packaging is both art and science; it has to be both aesthetically pleasing and functional. Since most packaging is designed for square or rectangular boxes, experimenting with radial balance and round designs in package design is one way to help your product stand out from the crowd. 

Take, for example, the packaging for Taza Chocolate. The entire design is somewhat radial, but the wheel shape in the center is the only thing on the page that’s geometrically balanced. Centering it creates a spiralic effect that adds depth and a mysterious allure, inviting consumers to wonder what lies beyond the design.

Product photography

When it comes to product shots, radial balance photography is one way to draw a viewer’s eye to the aspect you want them to focus on the most: your merchandise. Take the below example from Diaspora Spice Co.: While the images don’t represent perfect radial balance, the raw spices are evenly arranged in patterns that radiate from a central focal point: a colorful spice tin.

Best practices for radial balance in marketing materials

• Focus on legibility
• Maintain visual hierarchy
• Group or alternate colors
• Build in white space
• Don’t fixate on precision

Inspired by some of the best examples of radial balance in art and marketing design, here are some tips for how to achieve radial balance and incorporate it into your assets and materials.

Focus on legibility

Radial balance can make designs visually striking, but clarity should always come first. As you arrange different shapes, make sure that every item remains recognizable and easy to read. A purse should still look like a purse, for example, no matter how you’ve flipped, rotated, and repeated it.

Maintain visual hierarchy

Balance does not mean every element has equal emphasis in a composition. There is a “hierarchy”—an order that attracts attention to the most important elements first. The most important elements should be the biggest, darkest, and boldest, while the less important elements can be smaller, lighter in color, or thinner. 

Group or alternate colors

In order to achieve radial balance, use color intentionally, allowing viewers to take in the different elements. In the Diaspora Spice Co. example above, notice that the radial design alternates dark and light spices so that it’s easier to tell them apart. Similarly, in the Rothy’s purse example, the purses are arranged in the same order as the rainbow. 

Build in white space

White or negative space gives the viewer’s eye time to rest and prevents graphic design from feeling cluttered. You can create it by building in blank space around the focal point of your layout or by including empty space as part of the pattern. 

Don’t fixate on precision

The goal of radial design isn’t perfection, it’s visual harmony. Radial symmetry should be an inspiration for your composition—not a constraint. Start simple and figure out what level of balance works best for your idea.