In Germany in the 1920s, Gestalt was created.
Gestalt means ‘whole’ or ‘form’. In design, Gestalt is related to the visual representation and the psychology of your design. “The object of studying gestalt is to put the designer in control of what the viewers see when they look at a composition....the whole is more than the sum of its parts.” (“Gestalt”)
Gestalt ultimately relates to your design as a whole. In the gestalt theory, there is five parts: closure, continuance, similarity, proximity, and alignment. Our mind works by grouping similar items when relating the visual message in a design. In other words, when your mind tries to relay the message in the design, “the stronger the grouping of visual elements, the stronger the gestalt will be”. In the same way, your brain can also ungroup items too look at them individually. Using this principle can also create variety in designs. “The trick is to strike a balance between unity and variety. Too much unity and the design can look boring and repetitive; too much variety and it can look chaotic and disconnected. Understanding gestalt concepts can help a designer control unity and variety.” (“Gestalt”)
Closure is the way that your brain fills in missing information. “It groups simple items that the mind puts together as a single entity.” The more complex the shape, the harder it is for your brain to comprehend. If some of the vital information is missing, our brains will not understand what is trying to be communicated. That is why simple geometric shapes are easier for our brains to understand. A savvy designer will leave some of the steps missing for your brain to link together. This helps keep the viewer’s interest in the message being communicated. (“Gestalt”)
Continuance could be defined as our road map in a design. It helps direct the viewer to different areas of the design. “It is based on the idea that once you start looking in a particular direction, you will continue looking in that direction until you see something significant”. We actually use this principle all the time. We use it to read text from left to right. Continuance could also be a point of significance. In design, you specify your focal point by making it stand out. Sometimes that includes a shape, an arrow, or a change in color. That is also an example of continuance. Other forms of continuance include eye direction and focal points, paths in images like roadways, or horizon lines, and perspective attributes. (“Gestalt”)
Similarity and Proximity refer to two additional principles of Gestalt theory. Similarity is comparable to how the items in the layout look and how they are grouped together. Proximity tells us where and how items that are in the layout will affect the grouping. The main thing to remember about similarity is that it is ‘based on what items look like not what they are like.’ (“Gestalt”)
As we know, when layouts are too complex, the brain tries to simplify them by using grouping. Similarity helps your brain group similar objects together to relay the message. Grouping similar items on the page also make it easier for the brain to translate. The three main aspects of similarity include value and color, size, and shape. Grouping together your design to combine like colors will help your brain group these together. With sizing elements in your designs, make sure that the biggest emphasis is also the largest. Finally, Shape can take on visual elements like textures and patterns. This will help draw your eye in and allow your brain to organize the shapes in your design. In typography, you can use bold and italics. This also helps your brain put emphasis on important parts of your design. (“Gestalt”)
Proximity and the relation of items to each other is another important principle for designers to think about. When thinking about proximity in your design, there are four main principles you should consider: close edge, touch, overlapping, and combining. (“Gestalt”)
Close edge is considering how close items of your design are to one another. This is quite evident in typography. If the tracking in your text is spaced too far apart, your text could be hard to read. Using tracking to pull text closer together can create harmonious elements of design that not only emphasize your message, but also allow for your viewer to clearly understand it. (“Gestalt”)
Touch is used in reference to exactly how it sounds. When items touch, they are still considered two separate entities. Using size can also affect how your items will touch. In typography, touching text is usually considered to be a tangent. Serifs touching other serifs in typography can be too hard to read in a block of text or in a headline. (“Gestalt”)
Overlapping can create the strongest gestalt. Overlapping two forms causes your brain to work harder to differentiate the two. If your items have to overlap, changing colors and size can make the items easier for your brain to read. (“Gestalt”)
Combining allows the grouping of items as a whole by using an “external element that acts to combine the times regardless of what other gestalt concepts are being used.” Combining could also be considered a method of spotlighting an important part of your message. Color blocking is another method of combining items to create a more unified design. (“Gestalt”)
Alignment is usually pretty obvious in designs. Alignment is the placement of elements of your design and how they line up. Not only does it help with organizing the gestalt of your work, but also helps create an organized piece. Typography is a good example of where we see alignment. You can align your text justified, left, center, or right. Doing so can help you create visual shape in your design. (“Gestalt”)
The most important two forms of alignment are edge alignment and center alignment. Flat edged items can be used in edge alignment. Squares and rectangles are ideal. Using these shapes can also form line or similarity to your design as well. To add visual interest and complexity to your design, you can use various sizes shapes and align them by edges. You are also secretly using grids when you use this principle. Edge alignment allows for a hierarchy that exists on the grid by using like shapes to create dimension and organization. It is also interesting to use slightly off shaped objects like rhombuses and parallelograms. (“Gestalt”)
Center alignment allows for any shaped objects to be aligned. Keeping the most basic shapes make it the easiest for our brain to comprehend. With aligning things center, you are creating emphasis on particular parts of your message by drawing your eye to the center of the area. In typography, central aligned text is common. It creates movement in the rag of the typography that is easily read and leaves your viewer with an organized text block to read. (“Gestalt”)
Another thing to think about in terms of alignment is how points of your elements line up in your designs. For example, if you have two images of churches with steeples, aligning the images so that the steeples are aligned will help give visual hierarchy and similarity to your design. If you are working with blocks of text, or color blocking, aligning parts of the text to create gutters also give hierarchy as well as line to your design. (“Gestalt”)
Gestalt Principles
