Tuesdays workshop was very interesting while we covered Gestalt Theory and Pareidolia, which are two forms of psychology that happens to everyone and what we see.
The Gestalt Theory allows us to predict how viewers will respond to our designs, especially if it may be relevant to a certain age, group or gender.
Gestalt is a psychology term which means “unified whole”. It refers to theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in the 1920s. This Theory follows 6 principles;
1. Law of Proximity – This is where certain elements that are closer together will be percieved as a coherent object.
Such as the above images here; on the left we see 9 squares and see them as separate objects. However, if we move them closer together such as the image on the right, they are seen as a larger square or seen as one whole group and not as individual objects.
2. Law of Similarity
In this image, there are 11 triangles that all follow the same pattern, it is seen as a whole image because of it’s similarity. The triangles below the eagle symbol look similar as the rest of the sunburst is made up of triangles.
An object can easily be emphasized if one object is dissimilar to the others, such as the end figure here, this is also known as an anomaly.
3. Law of Continuation
As humans we tend to continue contours and lines, whenever the elements of a pattern is established an implemented pattern.
4. Law of Closure
We also tend to enclose a space by completing a contour and ignoring gaps in future. A great example of this is the WWF logo, where a simple black and white panda has been formed. As you can see there is no line at the head and the back but this image has been made of simple negative space.
5. Law of Pragnanz
A Stimulus will be organized into as good a figure as possible. i.e. here good means symmetrical, simple and regular, the eye sees this as two shapes a square and a triangle.
6. Law of figure/ground
Stimulus will be perceived as separate from its ground. As here you can see a tree, but the lines in the ground make the image look like water, or using the water as the tree trunk.
Noma Bar, uses this a lot in his works, by playing with different types of negative space.
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Pareidolia
(/pærɨˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-DOH-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant.
The rest of the day then continued, where the class spent some time outside looking for objects that looked like this around the university. Then later we were given a piece of Type, body copy and a dot, to then make a layout on a 20x20cm square.
After this mini brief, I had then realised how uniform and simple my layout designs were compared to others in the class. I felt like I was not able to understand what was needed from the brief, but looking at the different variety around the class, I also see how different they were to each other.
Ruth Fiona 