The Gestalt Principles - seeing and understanding

Gestalt means "the unified whole" and is a psychological theory developed in the 1920s. The Gestalt principles have therefore existed for about a century, have been thoroughly tested, but have lost nothing of their validity or veracity.

The various principles explore our visual understanding of elements in relation to one another - how we tend to mentally place visual elements into groups, interpret and understand visual information presented to us. They start with the understanding that we tend to perceive objects in their simplest form, and concentrate on how humans interpret the relationship of objects.

There are various Gestalt principles but most people agree that there are severn core ideas that we will focus on today.

These principles have often been summed up in a line you may well know "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts". But this is a mistranslation and should actually be stated as: "The whole is different from the sum of its parts". It sounds a minor change but means a vastly different thing. Stated correctly the sum takes on a completely different meaning - not a combination or multiple of understanding but an entirely different interpretation.

So, let's explore some of the core principles in a little more detail:

The Gestalt Principles identify various methods we use to do this grouping and perceiving objects.?

1. Similarity:

Objects that look similar, might be automatically perceived as a distinct group. This similarity is usually defined by shape, colour, size, or texture.?Probably one of the easiest Gestalt principles to identify.

Let me share a personal story about a slightly more complex example of identifying "similarity".

I was once on a staff training day where we were asked to group letters and numbers together. The first few letters had already been written up on a board and we had to complete the categorisation:

AEF14 appeared in one set, whilst BCD23 appeared in a different group.?

At the time I worked at a publishing house and most of my colleagues were writers and editors, and were therefore language orientated.

To me, as a designer, a dyslexic and a visually orientated person, the categorisation was simple. But my colleagues struggled to see or understand what I saw instantly.?

They looked for deeper meanings in the groupings whereas I simply focused on the construction and forms of the letters and numbers.??

If made solely with straight lines then they were to be placed into group 1. But if they had a curved element of any sort they should be placed into group 2.?

In relation to Gestalt Principles, our categorisations do tend to look for more unified groups. Lions, tigers, and pumas might all instinctively be grouped as 'big cats'. Add in Persians and tabbies and we might identify them all as members of the cat family or feline species. Add in bears, cows and dogs and we would probably say they are all mammals.

We make our category choices based on the information presented - and usually by the most evident similarity based on that information.??

2. Continuation:

The human eye moves naturally from one object to another - it's instinctive and can be described as simply 'joining the dots'.

A dotted line can be read as a pathway and describe an outline or shape that our mind understands - even if it twists and turns and suddenly changes direction, if there is enough uniformity, then our brains can construct a pattern.?

Some studies have suggested that our individual implementation of the principle of continuation can be influenced by the reading tradition of the individual viewer. Mostly this seems to affect the starting point rather than the end result.

3. Closure:

Our brains tend to see closed shapes and will 'fill in the holes' when we encounter what we perceive to be incomplete lines and shapes. We will interpret open shapes and mentally 'fill in' the missing pieces to make them whole. Humans don't seem to like something unresolved - we desire to complete the missing parts.

The closure principle is often used in logo design where our brains are left to resolve shapes that are not fully represented, the WWF logo above is a good example of this. We mentally perceive the line for the top of the head and back without them being present.

In the art-world entire art movements have been based on this mental dexterity.

The small coloured marks of the pointillists were groundbreaking in their day. The shape and form of an object were not described in outlines and shapes but in dots of colour. Our eyes and brains 'filled in the blanks' and merges the tones to decipher the image - so we could see bathers on the bank of a river, or a landscape, before us. (cf.?Georges Seurat: Courbevoie, Landscape With Turret)

4. Proximity:

If objects are placed close together, we will often perceive them as a group - rather than seeing them individually, even when they aren’t similar in nature at all. This is most noticeable when other items are also present but are placed some distance away. These other items will be seen as separate from the original 'perceived group'.??

We've all seen this in action. We see a group pens on a table near a workspace, with a rule, a calculator and maybe some glasses - we automatically assume that those items all belong together. Probably one person's possessions. But another pen and notebook further down that same table we will assume belong to someone else.

5. Figure/Ground:

This principle demonstrates the human brains' tendency to separate objects from their background.?

We've all seen the optical illusions that show two faces or a vase, depending on whether your eye is focused on the foreground or the background.?

The artist MC Escher made many pieces that used this Gestalt principle, and others, in his work. What we focus on defines what we see.

Have you seen the YouTube video of an attention focus experiment where they ask people to count how many times a basketball is passed between members of a team in a fast-moving game? Most watchers are so focused on the task of correctly identify the players of the specified team and counting the passes they make, that they entirely miss the fact that someone in a gorilla suit walks right through the middle of the scene. It's best known as The Monkey Business Illusion and was created by Dr Daniel Simons. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo)

What it illustrates is that we take notice of what we direct our focus on.?

A more subliminal illustration would be when you buy a new car. Then suddenly you start seeing the same cars or cars of that same colour everywhere you go. They were always there ... It's simply that you are now more attuned too, and aware of them and so notice them more readily.?

6. Common Fate:

This principle states that elements that are moving together tend to be perceived as a unified group. The usual example given is of a flock of geese flying in their familiar V formation. Another example from the bird-world would be a murmuration of starlings - where a large number of bird appear to act with one mind, twisting and turning together.

In static designs this is generally interpreted as elements pointing the same direction will be seen as a group.?

7. Symmetry:?

The Gestalt principle of symmetry is?how people tend to perceive symmetrical elements as part of a unified group. Humans tend to look for order and meaning. Symmetry is one means of finding order that seems to appeal to our minds. It creates balance and uniformity.

Sometimes that symmetry is rotational, sometimes reflective but the principle of symmetry is so prevalent in logo design that we almost do not notice it anymore.

Conclusion

Humans are hard-wired to try to make sense of the world around us and our brains have numerous ways that they use to try and make that processing as swift as possible. In a dim and distant evolutionary history, the motivation was survival - and so we developed ways of using as little energy as possible to perform the mental tasks encountered. There are lots of examples of how our early survival processing still impacts and influence how we think now.

The Gestalt Principals can be seen as our brains trying to quickly process and understand information our eyes see. They help us expend less energy processing that information because we've developed mental short-cuts. Any visual designer should be aware of these principles to fully understand how people will decode our designs and ensure we are communicating with our audience as effectively as possible.