Graphic Design: The New Basics - Figure/Ground/Gestalt Principles

• Human cognition simplifies an enormous range of stimuli into understandable units -merges what we see with what we know.
• Visual perception is shaped by figure/ground relationships.
• We separate figures from space, colour or patterns that surround them.
• People are used to seeing the background as passive and unimportant in relation to the dominant subject.
• Graphic designers seek a balance between figure and ground - this relationship beings energy and order to form and space.
• Figure/ground is also known as positive/negative space.
• The brain puts together past experience and immediate sensory input in order to successfully navigate the environment.
• Designers crop, overlap and fragments images that exploit the brain's ability to full in missing information.
• We immediately recognise the shapes of letterforms.
• Perception can also cone in the form of sound - we associate sounds with objects.
• Grouping combines and separates in human perception.
• There are 6 modes of grouping:
• Simplicity
• Similarity
• Proximity
• Closure
• Continuity
• Symmetry
• All typography involves grouping - letters cluster into words.
• A stable figure/ground relationship exists when a form or figure stands clearly apart from its background.
• Reversible figure/ground occurs when positive and negative elements attract our attention equally and alternately - stripes.
• Ambiguous figure/ground compositions challenge the viewer to find a stable focal point - cubist paintings.
• Concept sketching - multiple rather than single is more valuable. 

Design Task 1

Here I created compositions using a single letterform to understand the use of positive and negative space. The results are below:

Design Task 2

For this task I used a contrasting pair of letterforms to create abstract compositions, again focusing on the positive and negative space.

Design Task 3

For this task I used squares and 3 colours to write 2 words in the same space. The words are puzzle and houses. Here I learnt that designs can show multiple things at once and I need to be able to balance this so all information is absorbed by the viewer.