G E S T A L T

GESTALT? Who ever is a designer or going to be one, if you do not know who is gestalt, sorry to say, but i dont know if you re ever fit to be a designer. Because GESTALT is well known in the design history!!

Anyways, moving on, 

Gestalt psychology or gestaltism , '' essence or shape of an entity's complete form" is a theory of mind and brain of the Berlin school . It is the operational principle of gestalt psychology is that the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies. The principle maintains that the human eye sees objects in their entirety before perceiving their individual parts.

 The gestalt effect is the form-generating capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves. In psychology, gestaltism is often opposed to structuralism . The phrase "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" is often used when explaining gestalt theory.

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:

FIGURE GROUND.

The eye differentiates an object form its surrounding area. a form, silhouette, or shape is naturrally perceived as figure, while the surrounding area is perceived as ground which is also known as background.

Balancing figure and ground can make the perceived image more clear. Using unusual figure/ground relationships can add interest and sublety to an image.

Figure ground is everywhere. Is one of the simplify term in gestalt principles. Let me show you a few examples of FG.

This is the basic FG that is quite obvious. We normally present FG as black and white. This is because it is more simple to demonstrate. According to this picture, Black is the figure, and white is the ground.

I said so because the black figure shows more clear cut than the white figure.  The black figure also stands out more. In front of you shows a man playing a thrumphet and behind is a woman face. 

FIGURE : A LADY DANCING

GROUND : A WHITE WALL PAPER.

FIGURE : HANDS HOLDING A SNOW ICE

GROUND : SNOW 

FIGURE : TWO LOVELY COUPLE 

GROUND : THE SKY AND THE SEA.

FIGURE : CHRISTMAS TREE

GROUND : BRIGHT GOLD/YELLOW WALLPAPER

These are a few examples of FG.  It is very easy to spot. Look around you, if you see things in a far distance, it will be more clearer. It is everywhere. This principle plays in everyday basis. 

It is used in all kinds of  designs and till now, you can still find this principle not only from the examples i have shown you, but also you can find it in magazines, posters and etc. 

Next up, CLOSURE. 

Ahhhhh, i am very sure you all already know what i mean by CLOSURE. Such a common sense word right? 

Let me tell you a brief explanation about CLOSURE.

CLOSURE  occurs when an object is incomplete or a space is not completely enclosed. If enough of the shape is indicated, people percieve the whole by filling in the missing infomation.

Looking at this picture :

You can see that the drawing of this tree trunks are not complete. By looking at this, we know its a '' tree branch''. Am i right? Question is, how do we know it is a tree branch even though the space in between is not filled up entirely? 

 Well this is just the start of my brief about the meaning of closure. Lets move towards the understanding of CLOSURE. Here are a few good examples of CLOSURE : 

Two dogs wanting to kiss each other, but it is an incomplete image. By looking at this , even though it is incomplete, this image immediately interprets that this two dogs are in love and about to kiss. 

You see, even though it did not fill up the space, but because we ve seen this before, we do not need to go into controlled thinking. 

This is a good example to show CLOSURE as well. 

You see that the letter '' I'' is missing but at one glance,  we then interpret the image as '' MISSING''.

Not only this image consist of closure, but it also a mix with FIGURE GROUND.

So, now you guess what is figure and ground :)

Next principle, 

PROXIMITY.

Proximity occurs when elements are placed close together. They tend to be perceived as a group.
Imagine 9 separate SQUARES without proximity. They are perceived as separate shapes.

But if you apply proximity, 

THIS IS WHAT YOU'LL GET :

When the squares are given close proximity, unity occurs. While they continue to be separate shapes, they are now perceived as one group.

For example,

This man riding on a one-wheel, is made up small bits of green paper. It is not exactly touching each other, but it is close together? 

You realized that this two examples i have shown you are made up of dots of paint to create a portrait of a man?

Another principle from gestalt is :

SIMILARITY

hmmm, im also guessing you roughly know what this means.

Similarity means it is something that is repetitive or i can put it this way , '' it is the same objects that appears again and again''. People often perceive them as a group or pattern.

faces are part of the '' similiarity princple''.

Even if it has different features, we still categorize this as '' FACES''. The similarity of this example is ''faces''. We all have the same function. Eyes, nose, lips? Which human being doesn't apply to this? I am sure all does right :) 

DO YOU SEE ANY SIMILARITY? 

The circles and squares are repeated. 

Moving to,

CONTINUITY. 

Oh, do you know the two principles of gestalt that i have mentioned up there made up of 

CONTINUITY?

Well, if you do not know, here's the answer :

Gestalt principles for grouping that describe this process include proximity. Proximity groups nearby figures together, whereas,  Similarity groups similar figures together. 

As you can see there are similar shapes and how they group as one. This tells that proximity and similarity goes together to create '' CONTINUITY''. 

Continuity is  occurs when the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue to another object.

To end this post, i hope you had a great understanding about GESTALT PRINCIPLES. Because it is applied everywhere in design. Without this principles, there is no way we can move on to the next step. 

This is a group video that will show you our version of GESTALT PRINCIPLES. 

 CREDITS to my fellow team mates ! 

ENJOY!