Exercise 1 : CONTRAST and GESTALT THEORY

[ GCD60804 ]

 EXERCISE 1 : CONTRAST AND GESTALT THEORY

WEEK 1 - WEEK 4

Contrast and Gestalt Theory

1. Recap of Lectures 

Week 1 

Today Dr. Jinchi brought us go through the module information and was briefing about our upcoming exercises, projects and final project. We learnt about Topic 1.1 - Elements and Principles of Design and Topic 1.2 - Contrast & Gestalt Theory.

Lecture Note:

• Elements of Design : Line, Shape, Form, Size, Texture, Space, Colour (Hue, Value, Intensity) 

revision note

• Principles of Design : Contrast, Balance, Emphasis, Rules of Third, Repetition/ Pattern/ Rhythm, Movement, Hierarchy, Alignment, Harmony, Unity, Proportion

How to differentiate Elements and Principles of Design?

• If the elements are the ingredients, the principles are the recipe for a good work of design.
• Elements are individual "building blocks"; Principles are organisational fundamentals that resulted from or guides the arrangement of the elements.

Contrast and Gestalt Theory 

Contrast : is the juxtaposition of strongly dissimilar elements. It means “difference”, can provide visual interest and emphasise a point. Contrast can apply to value in pencil drawings and even colours.

Gestalt Theory : “Gestalt” refers to “shape” or “form” in German. Gestalt principles are rules that describe how the human eye perceives visual elements. It aim to show how complex scenes can be reduced to more simple shapes.

• Principle of Similarity 
• Principle of Continuation
• Principle of Closure
• Principle of Proximity
• Principle of Figure/Ground
• Law of Symmetry & Order

2. My Design Process : 

Visual Research 

Figure 1.1

 ( https://images.app.goo.gl/TzYM9w5rugahczU96 )

Figure 1.2

Environment Poster by Segunda Llamada

( https://pin.it/1MqXEXf )

Figure 1.3

Save the Earth by Yun-Rung Chu

( https://pin.it/2Vfg5xn )

Figure 1.4

Freedom of Speech by Pei-Ling Ou

( https://pin.it/4gSTu0q )

Idea Exploration and Description

1.Contrast

Contrast 1.1

Idea 1 : headphone and bicycle

I wanted to combine headphone and bicycle because I think they can be contrast in somewhere:

headphone: is like an inside world, or we can say travel the world through music by our own; 

bicycle: is an outside world, we can travel the world by vehicles, see the world through our eyes. 

But after trying to combine them, I felt it is hard to come out as a contrast design, it's just more like a contrast idea.

Idea 2 : lollipop and dark background

So I tried to find out any element from these both items and I got the circle. As I drew out the circle, a lollipop pops up in my mind. 

lollipop: is like a symbol of my childhood (I love sweets), so I think can make a contrast between lollipop (childhood) and the dark background (adulthood). 

To make this design fits the concept of contrast, I recalled what Ms Jinchi had taught us in week 1 so I wanted to make contrast between the colours and front and back.

Contrast 1.2

Contrast 1.3

Contrast 1.4

Contrast 1.5

 I drew out some lollipops and cut it out. Then, I tried out different ways to play with the lollipop pattern. During this process, I realised that my lollipops wasn’t standing out enough so I wanted to add something to make my lollipops stand out a little bit. After I got some feedback from Ms Jinchi, I decided to draw some lines on it but keep the old one as well. I came out with few kinds of designs because I can’t decide which is the best.

Final Designs

Contrast 1.6

Contrast 1.7

Contrast 1.8

But after the feedback section with Ms, we agreed to use the first design which is contrast 1.6 because it looks like 3D.

2. Gestalt Theory 

Gestalt 1.1

Idea 1 : tree and lung

 For gestalt, at first I wanted to do something about the nature, so I thought of tree and lungs because the branches and the bronchioles look alike and they seem to have some connection because the air of nature can affect our lungs.  But I found out that’s not easy to combine them together, so I gave up on this idea and try to use these both items to derive something else. 

Idea 2 : tree and hand

Gestalt 1.2

I tried to find some elements of tree that may look like other items and I thought of hand, I feel that the fingers and branches do have some similarities so I think I may combine them together. In this combination, I wanted to make the figure/ground principle. But I would like to try something more so I decided to add some slogan for this design and meet the closure principle.

When I’m sure with using this idea, I started to think about anything I can play with the leaves. I thought of curly leaves or circle leaves but it may makes the design looks complicated so I gave up on this idea. I wonder should I let the leaves to be black or the hand, but due to the slogan needs to be dark to stand out so the hand has to be white.

After I’m satisfied with this idea, I start to draw a tree with a hand on a black paper and cut it down. As I said, I wanted to add on a closure principle so I wrote a slogan - “WE CARE” for this design to represent that we care about the nature.

Gestalt 1.3

Gestalt 1.4

Gestalt 1.5 

This is the first design of gestalt but I found some posters that are quite similar with the idea of tree and hand, I decided to change it to something else. After getting the feedback from Ms Jinchi, I decided to keep the slogan - “WE CARE” because she said it’s quite interesting to play with the words. So I keep on brainstorming what item can replace the tree.

Gestalt  1.5

In the end, I thought of the smokestacks and fog. I think the fog and tree leaves look alike so when people look at this design, their first reaction may wonder is that fog or tree. The reason why I wanted to do this effect is to reflect the society. Nowadays, we can’t really see clearly fog or tree from a far distance because factories are increasing and trees are decreasing. The fogs are slowly cover up all the trees and do we still care about the nature? They have to recognise what is the thing that they really care about, the nature plant or the manufacturing plant.

Feedback from Lecturer

Week 3

Today, Ms Jinchi gave us some feedback on the works we have done. I remembered she said that sometimes we have to accept our design to be simply and I’m quite agree with it because when we put too much elements, we may lose focus and make it looks complicated. Ms Jinchi agreed with me that the gestalt design may be familiar but she said the design of slogan with closure principle is quite interesting so I guess I will keep that slogan part and replace the tree with another design. At first I thought the contrast design may be a little bit simply but Ms Jinchi said it is alright so I think I can keep it. She gave me some ideas to draw some lines on the lollipops but also keep the previous one so I can choose which is better in the end of the day. 

Week 4

Today, we have another feedback section with Ms and to finalise our 2 exercises. For the contrast design, we decided to go for the both blank and lines lollipop and combine them together because Ms said they made a 3D look. For the Gestalt, I finalised it last week so everything is fine. 

Final Design Outcome 

Contrast

PDF File for Contrast:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hHAgeLIx4aZw8DvyGLN2OHMNiW2izL4u/view?usp=sharing

Gestalt

PDF File for Gestalt :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wV1sVrz08jd9k79r8hyFP4E28bUiB3bp/view?usp=sharing

Reflection on the Exercise

I found out this exercise is quite interesting although some cut and paste process may be a bit struggle because when I need to redo it, I have to tear it out and stick another new one, but overall it was fun. It reminds me when I was doing art works in high school, but with more knowledge because we never really learn those principles in high school. I think doing research is really an important process for a designer, so that our ideas will be wider since there are lots of outstanding designs in the field.