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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.

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