Form & Composition with Gestalt Principles
Print / Illustration
2019
Individual Project
Chew, Rong Kang
About the Project
We were challenged to create 5 compositions that embody the Gestalt principles, where simple individual squares came together to represent a complex illustration of a topic word. The use of these black solid squares forced us to distill the essence of each word and to express it using the limitations of each 4inch by 4inch canvas.
Project Process
For each of my compositions, I focused on a central figure that succinctly represented the topic, instead of having creating a pattern that is more abstract and subject to interpretation. Some of these compositions became more literal, while there are some that inject a little imagination.
Order
As a programmer, ideas about order came to me quite easily, however many of them revolved around numerical order in lists and queues. I also had thought about my time in the Singapore military and how it was an orderly institution — we had to listen to orders from a superior, and fall in line for parades. Some of my initial sketches represented each of these ideas.
In the end, I decided to combine both ideas together. My final iterations included the element of a descending order, with squares becoming smaller and smaller parts of the figure. However, there is also an element of uniformity where each small square lined up to become the same bigger square, which were all lined up too. The final composition added bleeding off the canvas to suggest a never-ending continuity of smaller squares coming together and lining up.
Tension
The tension composition was slightly more difficult, which I attribute to a desire of making a visually balanced piece of art. I tried to focus on creating situations of stress and anticipation by juxtaposing different shapes, and to suggest to the viewer a question of “What happens next?” with figures frozen in time.
I quite liked the element of stress and anticipation, and explored one of the compositions that strongly suggested that, which had a giant cube that was resting atop a tiny one. This certainly suggested stress, where the small cube was squished, and might give way to rotate and be squished further. With the advice of the Instructor Suzanne, I looked into other possibilities of increasing tension, including one that was upside down and hanging instead. The final piece adds a tilted baseline to increase the potential for motion in the piece, and positions the tiny square in a place where it may have a chance to escape, but it is not certain!
Congestion
Naturally, compositions of crowded squares came to my mind for “Congestion”. I also experimented with compositions involving the square pieces becoming stuck in certain situations, either being unable to enter or exit a certain layout. Some of these layouts involved funnels or grids (aka gridlock).
I was rather drawn to a composition I made to initially represent a negative space that all other squares were trying to enter. When re-creating this pattern in Illustrator, I found that the pattern seemed more rigid and it was hard to discern the individual squares squeezing against one another. This sparked me to remove the defined negative space to show the prominent corners, and I also added some additional squares on the outside to give a sense of gravity and attraction to the center. The composition could also be interpreted as a big bang after a major congestion, an explosion instead of an implosion.
Playfulness
Playfulness was a difficult composition as it is not easy to come up with a figure that is literally playful. As a word that is strongly subject to interpretation, I struggled to ideate examples from my own personal experiences which included playing ball, a pinwheel and being out in the rain.
I decided to try something entirely new and experimented with waves and curves, eventually arriving at a snake-like figure. After receiving feedback on incorporating depth, I attempted to create a perspective effect on the snake coming from the horizon. While the perspective looked interesting, the number of squares required was too numerous and the perspective effect could be missed out and ending up looking like a smokey wisp. My end product was a simplification of the depth effect onto a circle. The circle is tilted-off center, and the depth effect is prominent and unmistakable. The depth perspective on the circle also seems to suggest a motion where the circle would continue rotating. This composition was fairly different from the others in the set, making it seem a bit more “fun”.
Comfort
Comfort was another composition that was slightly more abstract and harder to grasp. I tried to focus on shapes that seemed at rest and balanced, but the compositions seemed a little static and not very interesting without some explanation. I also thought about just “fitting in” and experimented with squares matching into the voids of other squares.
My final compositions explored this idea further, first by providing a negative space which the square could go into, This exploration also led me to the idea of a “hug” when a square went into the negative space. I came up with this figure that arched over the smaller square, seeming to provide it embrace, protection and hence, comfort. In some iterations, I experimented with the position of this figure, but when it was tucked into the corner, it felt that the small square was trapped in that space. I returned it to the center in the final composition to give it room to grow and breathe.
The exercise on creation compositions with small squares taught me how to utilize the Gestalt principles in visual and communicative design. It was often the case in some of my designs to have to simplify. By reducing the number of complex elements, I could distill down each word and message such that it could be easily interpreted by an audience without additional explanation.
