That’s a sentence we never thought we’d have to write, it’s a design topic we never thought we’d cover. But, as designers we are adaptable and at Amazema our aim is to make your life easier, prettier and more comforting. 

So, where do we start? A background is essentially a vertical surface and can be treated like a canvas. There are a few design guidelines we can use here to help. The three most important for optimising focus in your Zoom meetings are; Balance, Contrast and Ratio.

Balance

This doesn’t necessarily mean symmetrical, in design it refers to the “visual weight”. Take for example the image below. The right side is much busier than the left and it uses the scale of ball on the left to visually balance the light vs. dark in the space. 

How to use this in Zoom

Try not to frame yourself so that one side of your body has lots of pieces of art or furniture and the other side is entirely empty. This way instead of the eye training towards the one thing in the background it naturally is brought into the foreground, to your beautiful face.

Contrast

Really this is about clarity, and again, training the eye to focus in on what’s important. It also doesn’t mean you have to use only black and white or “high” contrast colours, because that can be distracting too. The important thing is that the colours are within the same colour scheme and are different enough from each other that the items are clearly distinguishable.

How to Use this in Zoom

Make sure whatever is behind you isn’t a muddle of similar colours and unclear lines with no white space. This also applies to clutter, when there’s clutter there is generally neither clarity nor contrast.

Ratio

Ahh, the Golden Ratio. It guides design in the natural world and therefore some very clever humans have implemented it in man made design for all ages. We naturally apply the golden ratio when taking photos. Ratio is how you use all the other design elements, so it’s kinda both bookends in the library of design. 

How to Use this in Zoom

Remember this applies to the background with you in front of all the action. So in essences there’s an extra element, your lovely self.  This is important because the composition needs to work with you in front as well, which is why we’ve added the silhouette. (I like to dress to match the presentation I’m giving, you could dress to match your interiors!)

One thing you could do is set up your computer and take a photo from it, so you can see the composition from your viewers perspective and see what might need to be moved.

And there you have it, our recipe for Zoom Success! If you liked the decorator items and the artwork jump over to our online shop and collect the goodies :)

Love from Amazema