Gestalt

Our mind has a natural and instinctual intuition about form and structure, and it always strives to find the simplest solutions. The faster we understand the relation between visual elements the faster we’ll understand the message. To help our cognitive processes we can use different laws of gestalt to help the eye and brain make connections quicker and to understand relations between different objects and groups better. Gestalt theory has an approach to the total image. Gestalt laws describe how we tend to organize visual elements into unified wholes. Knowledge about these principles helps us in building a unity in visual language. It’s an aid for both the designer and the user.

Examples of laws of gestalt:

Law of prägnanz – In reality we always try to organize or reduce shapes into the simplest form possible, we here see three tilted lines together in triangle, rather than many much more complicated shapes.

Similarity – Items that share the same attributes, for example shape or colour, tends to be grouped together. The adidas logo tend to us organize tilted lines into one shape.

Law of closure – We tend to ignore gaps and complete the shape with invisible lines to create familiar shapes. Logo of ‘le coq sportif’ the rooster is bulged over triangle, nevertheless our mind ignores that and closes triangle

Proximity - uses the close arrangement of elements to create a group association between those objects. If individual elements are also similar, they will tend to be perceived as a single whole, even though they are separate elements. In Unilever logo different symbols are used to represent letter U.

Continuation - Continuation is the principle through which the eye is drawn along a path, line or curve, preferring to see a single continuous figure than separate lines. This can be used to point towards another element in the composition, and is seen where a line is cut through one object, often in a curve, aligning perfectly with a secondary element.