Project Two: Form & Composition
For the second project in the course Communication Design Fundamentals, we were challenged to communicate five separate ideas through the use of simple black squares using Gestalt’s principles. Gestalt’s theory details the tendencies of the brain to apply relationships onto images based on pillars of similarity, continuation, closure, proximity, and ground. Using these principles, I constructed images with black squares to convey the ideas of order, tension, congestion, playfulness, and comfort.
Phase One: Draw It Out
With order, I was just starting to get my feet wet in this experiment. I tried to focus on forms that feel peaceful. Only one item is asymmetrical about some axis. This came from my own experience of feeling order in tidy situations with objects configured in size order.
In tension, I tried to conjure environments that feel stressful or tense. From left to right: a mimic of the mysterious “typing” message after a risky text, a battleground, a feeling of sharp contrast, and the feeling of being small in the face of two overlords (I tried to envision the worst interview ever in this image).
Congestion proved to be a great exploration for scale and movement. The two leftmost images in this collection exemplify this point best. The lower left image was an attempt to viewer feel like the square; trapped. For the rightmost image on both rows, I thought specifically of how I feel in big cities, and tried to conjure images of an overbearing crowd and busy skyline.
Playfulness relied heavily on form and the feeling of squares forming bodies. For the top leftmost image, I thought of Ecuador’s tourism logo, which consists of a coil of dots in rainbow colors, used to symbolize the life and adventure found in the country. This image was an exploration in if the same effect could be simulated in black and white. For the second image in the top row, I thought of the joy I got when walking through a beaded doorway at a friends house. The last top image, I tried to imagine an adult surrounded by small, active kids. In the middle of this image, I realized flipping my “people” representations would create an exclamation point, and tried to arrange them in what would end up looking like a face. In the final image, I tried to imagine a spring being pulled back, seconds from reaching its point of release.
In comfort, I thought about what relationships and environments I felt peaceful and comfortable with. From left to right: a fetus-like object (originally inspired by my first playfulness image), two figures intertwined, the dark, a family, and a pair. These relationships lean into heterosexual representations of relationships, but having straight parents and being straight myself, they reflected directly to relationships I have in my life.
Phase Two: Digital Iterations
Tension
My first iteration for this concept was based on feedback originally received from our instructor, Mackenzie Cherban, on how slight disruptions in an otherwise orderly image can conjure strong feelings of discomfort. This draws upon Gestalt’s principle of similarity, which states that objects that look similar will be perceived as a group. Evenly spaced, identically sized squares produce a group, while the squares turned to an angle disrupt the group image.
In my final iteration, I drew on the Gestalt’s principle of continuation by including a slightly off-canvas image to communicate the idea that the “snake” figure continued past the canvas boundary. I made this figure more animalistic because I wanted to draw on people’s natural fear of snakes and create a more purposeful image of something stuck in a tight place.
In overview, this piece changed from tension based on disruption to tension based on feelings of fear and claustrophobia, exploring options of scaling in the process.
Congestion
Congestion served as a great exploration of Gestalt’s principle of proximity, paired with scale, to create a large square that is distinct from the surrounding group of “attacking” squares. Here I thought the viewer might imagine themselves as that large square being surrounded. In my final iteration, I maintained the same scale difference of those further from the center of the canvas are smaller, but broke up the appearance of one large central square in favor of gaps and edges to make it seem like the body was comprised of small squares almost crawling over each other. Here, proximity was used to create the image of a central mass that was growing steadily as more small squares approached it.
Order
My order piece again utilized proximity to established set groupings of lines of squares — as can be seen in the above left picture, the distance between each line of squares increases the further they are the center. By my final iteration, I increased the difference between the smallest gap and the largest to make it more apparent, as well as added a thick border to establish greater balance in the piece. Finally, small details in the piece were corrected, including the spacing of squares to the border along the perimeter of the piece.
This piece relied heavily on symmetry and systematic changes to create order, while still exploring using patterns to create textures in 2D.
Playfulness
In playfulness, I again played with similarity in scale to create two distinct bodies in this piece: one large box serving as a jungle gym, and several smaller squares as playful figures enjoying this gym. I initially wanted to create a “loop” effect where figures jumping off this big square would appear to run back around behind the large figure to jump off all over again. This attempt wasn’t as successful as hoped, with the “loop” not being well interpreted by others and essentially only adding clutter. The positioning was then moved to utilize the lowest edge as a horizon for all squares
Comfort
Comfort used Gestalt’s principle of negative and positive space to create a clear image of a family unit. This image includes two “parent” figures and two “child” figures, reflecting my own family which I immediately thought about when I heard “comfort”. In the final iteration, the parents were moved to the sides of the children to create a feeling of protection and closeness, which is emphasized by the closure around the family.
This project taught me a lot about insight on the process of creating digital art and conjuring meaning and movement with simple figures. The most insightful feedback I received from our final critique session was the final impression that the irregular spacing between squares in my order piece disrupted the sense of order in this piece than contribute to it. Overall, my decision for this irregular spacing was a deliberate test of how many components of my piece I could vary while still maintaining a sense of order. It seems that the spacing differences were too extreme for many, but overall I still enjoy how unique this piece is and how it explores negative and positive space.
I look forward to applying all the new skills I’ve learned from this project to my work in the future!
