Gestalt principles and the psychology of design | Get the creative edge. The word “gestalt” gets thrown around a lot in design. Taken from the German word for “form” or “shape,” it often refers to the overall look of something that is greater than the sum of its parts. In psychology, gestalt refers to the basic principles that allow us to visually perceive order. These principles are fundamental building blocks for creating visual meaning – and often seen in logo design. To better explain how to utilize gestalt principles in your work, we’ve put together a designer-oriented crash course.
Enjoy! Figure-ground Logo: Sony Walkman (via Wikipedia) When we look at the Sony Walkman logo (above), we don’t simply see a single plain containing orange and white pixels – even though that’s actually what it is. That’s thanks to the figure-ground gestalt principle, which says that when a smaller shape is surrounded by a larger uniform area, we perceive the smaller object to be in front and have the border. Proximity Logo: IBM (via Wikipedia) Similarity Continuance Closure. Examples of Gestalt. The Gestalt Principles.
The Gestalt Principles Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified whole". It refers to theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in the 1920s. These theories attempt to describe how people tend to organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied. These principles are: Similarity Similarity occurs when objects look similar to one another. People often perceive them as a group or pattern.
The example above (containing 11 distinct objects) appears as as single unit because all of the shapes have similarity. Unity occurs because the triangular shapes at the bottom of the eagle symbol look similar to the shapes that form the sunburst. When similarity occurs, an object can be emphasised if it is dissimilar to the others.
The figure on the far right becomes a focal point because it is dissimilar to the other shapes. Continuation Closure Closure occurs when an object is incomplete or a space is not completely enclosed. Examples. The designer’s guide to Gestalt Theory. If you’ve ever wondered why some design approaches seem more coherent, connected or unified than others, it may be because the designer has used the Gestalt principles to help bring together their design elements. In the 1920s a group of psychologists in Germany developed a series of theories of visual perception, describing how viewers group together different objects into groups or a single coherent whole when the separate elements are arranged together in a particular way.
The prominent founders of the collection of theories and principles are Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka. The term Gestalt means 'unified whole', which is a good way of describing the over-arching theme behind the principles: if you collect together your design elements in an arrangement using one of the approaches, your design will feel more connected, coherent and complete. Rudolf Arnheim While it's well worth reading Arnheim's book, to summarise there are six common, basic Gestalt Principles: 01. Design Principles: Visual Perception And The Principles Of Gestalt. Advertisement In 1910, psychologist Max Wertheimer had an insight when he observed a series of lights flashing on and off at a railroad crossing. It was similar to how the lights encircling a movie theater marquee flash on and off. To the observer, it appears as if a single light moves around the marquee, traveling from bulb to bulb, when in reality it’s a series of bulbs turning on and off and the lights don’t move it all.
This observation led to a set of descriptive principles about how we visually perceive objects. These principles sit at the heart of nearly everything we do graphically as designers. This is the start of a series of posts about design principles. Future posts in this series will consider aspects of design like space, balance and visual hierarchy. The Key Ideas Behind Gestalt Theory “The whole is other than the sum of the parts.” — Kurt Koffka The quote above is gestalt in a nutshell.
There are several key ideas behind gestalt: Gestalt Principles Closure Closure. Figure/Ground. I principi della Gestalt applicati al design | Logo Design Blog - CreareLogo.it. L’ispirazione e la creatività seguono sempre dei modelli riconoscibili che provengono dalla cultura e dalle tendenze sociali. Ma per funzionare bene nel design, devono considerare non solo l’elemento singolo ma anche la totalità di come vengono percepiti. Ecco come possiamo definire la teoria della Gestalt, una questione di percezione.
Gli elementi visivi sono caratterizzati da un profondo rapporto di forma che ogni buon designer dovrebbe conoscere e capire. I principi della Gestalt possono essere utili per capire come funziona la percezione visiva e perché alcune forme o elementi hanno un aspetto più equilibrato di altre. Nell’articolo di oggi andremo a vedere cosa è la “Scuola Gestalt”, quali sono le sue regole e perché sono così importanti per i designers. Parlando di loro ci sarà anche da vedere come esse vengono applicate ad esempi reali. L’importanza dell’approccio psicologico Cosa è la teoria della Gestalt? Percezione Le 6 regole della Gestalt 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.