Design Principles -Task 2

What is 'gestalt'?

Gestalt - the whole is other than the sum of the parts.

4 Principles:

1.  Emergence - whole identified before the parts
2. Reification - the mind fills in the gaps
3. Multi-stability - the mind avoids uncertainty
4. Invarience - recognises similarities and differences

Relating this to Figure/Ground Relationships:

• Stable - the figure is the figure, and ground is the ground.
• Reversible - perception of figure and ground can flip.
• Ambiguous - not able to tell what's what.

Own work

 'Lemon' and 'Cake'. 

Using rules of gestalt, focusing mainly on figure and ground, 2 words using the same grid arranged  in such a way as to represent the 'reversible' figure/ground relationship. Subtle ambiguity to which colour is for what words, and which is used for the background. 

Used a slight offset grid to reduce the levels of ambiguity within the shapes, allowing each word to have either the top or bottom half exposed. Our arrangement had 'lemon' in the foreground and 'cake in the background'.

In hind-sight the positioning should be reversed as the top half of a word is more recognisable than the bottom half. This would have given both words and equal chance to be understood by the viewer.

Later, animated the words using the triangular flaps. This made the words more difficult to read, thus making your brain work harder to fill in the gaps. 

I would be interesting to incorporate the element of animation into my studio work (OUGD403). Experimenting with animation as a way to present work, show movement of product if applicable.