August 28th, 2016

8/28/2016

OVERVIEW OF GESTALT:
Gestalt is a general description for the concepts that make unity and variety possible in design. It is a German word that roughly translates as 'whole' or 'form'.

The study of gestalt originated in Germany in the 1920s. It is a form of psychology that is interested in higher order cognitive processes relative to behaviorism. The aspects of gestalt theory that interest designers are related to gestalt's investigations of visual perception, principally the relationship between the parts and the whole of visual experience. The visual world is so complex that the mind has developed strategies for coping with the confusion. The mind tries to find the simplest solution to a problem. One of the ways it does this is to form groups of items that have certain characteristics in common.
-paraphrased from http://daphne.palomar.edu/design/gestalt.html, accessed 23 Aug13
All image sources below are linked to the picture. To see its source, click on the picture.

One Gestalt concept is Proximity. We reviewed many more in lecture the second week of classes when we began Project 1.

PROXIMITY: When elements are placed close together, they are perceived as a group.
The example below shows 2 ways of organizing the six circles.

In A, you should see 6 separate circles.
B is still technically six circles, but you should also see ONE GROUP (that happens to form a triangle). In this case, it is achieved via their proximity. In other words, the six individual circles are close together and therefore, human beings will see them as a visual grouping in order to simplify the visual chaos.

This is what is meant by "THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS". In B, we see the whole (the grouping that forms a triangle in this case) more than we see each individual part (six separate circles).

The photo below groups the 2 individuals walking near each other and separates the one walking the other way. FYI: this sample shows both proximity (the 2 girls are close together vs. the guy) and similarity (girls facing forward, guy facing the other way) to group in order to simplify the visual world. Instead of individual squares or people, our mind perceives separate groupings of individual things. We can still see the individual pieces, but our mind helps us to simplify our world by grouping. "THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS."

Though many Gestalt principles will overlap, be careful to not confuse Proximity with Similarity. For example in the photo below, the gentleman facing forward vs. those around him group by similarity (or one could think "he is facing the other direction, and is therefore DISsimilar from others around him"). However, they are all in one big group, so it doesn't illustrate Proximity very well.

If you get confused, try to imagine the items in the picture (people, nature, buildings, letters, etc.) as the simple squares vs circles. The guy facing you would be a circle surrounded by those around him as squares. The squares would group by similarity vs. the circle, but the proximity has no play here.

STUDENTS:
ONE SAMPLE OF GESTALT PROXIMITY

DO NOT use the black geometric shapes on a white background to show proximity because this is too easy. Find a photo or other work like a painting that shows grouping by proximity. You will find a few correct examples beyond the black geometric shapes from our Google search. OR you can comprehend this elementary concept and find an image with some other search of photos until you find it.

Remember you must explain your choice in at least 4 sentences.

11 Comments

Neil Williams

8/29/2016 12:23:00 pm

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Khansa Alodhaib

8/29/2016 12:24:45 pm

Hello. it's me :)

Nichole Johns link

8/29/2016 01:51:01 pm

This picture represents Gestalts concept of proximity and similarity in its own way. Proximity is shown by each basket having a different group of bell peppers. However, they all can be seen as a whole group because they are beside each other on the same table. As for similarity, the peppers are pouring out of the basket in the same direction.

Muneyoshi Sudo link

8/31/2016 12:28:38 pm

What you can see in this picture is merely nine individuals. But, what else do you see in there? Well, I think this picture is a great example of Gestalts proximity because these nine children can be recognized as five groups: group of one at left, group of two at the left back, group of three at the left front, group of two at the center, and group of one at the right. The picture isn't obviously saying that, but this is how we recognize it because these children are close together.

Brittney Clayton link

9/2/2016 11:53:51 am

In the image you lock onto two realizations. The lonely woman off to the right, in her own little world, and the four scene scopes that start on the left of her. This is how they show proximity, separating the woman from the rest of the image even though they show similarity in size and positioning of the image by being side by side. This is how our brain registers and groups objects and individuals.

xiyang hua link

9/7/2016 11:23:23 am

we can see 2 horeses at one picture. one is white, and one is black. the author actually just draw the black horese at a special position to make 2 horses. Therefore, this is the gestal theory. it is a typical figure and ground. figure and ground means that "Figure–ground organization is a type of perceptual grouping which is a vital necessity for recognizing objects through vision."

Emma link

9/13/2016 12:15:16 pm

I think this image is a great example of Gestalt theory because it shows groups and shape. This is a group of colored pencils that are grouped together to show a circle and they are also grouped together by color. The pencils can show groups in different ways such as being grouped by warm colors and cool colors or by different shades of red, blue and yellow. The picture shows proximity by grouping the pencils together and it shows similarity by the colors that the pencils are organized by.

Darian Stewart link

9/19/2016 12:14:48 pm

This is an example of Gestalt's Law of Proximity because it shows different objects that are grouped together by shape and object. This is a group of different utensils I believe in a restaurant. The objects are not only grouped by shape, but color as well by grouping them in black, and metal objects.

Mary Bouchard link

11/7/2016 07:01:55 pm

Within this image are three birds perched on a fence in such a way that they display proximity. First, two of the birds are close together, leaving the third bird by its self. Secondly, the two birds that are closest to each other are also stacked in line. These reasons follow Gestalt's theory of proximity because they cause our mind to perceive them as separate groups.

Haydin Hall

11/28/2016 07:26:25 pm

http://www.ontarioparks.com/parksblog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Group-camping-825x510.jpg

This family that has gone camping is set into two separate groups. This is a good example of Gestalt's theory because in this photograph there are two people in one group set to the right and on the left there is another group of four people. It could further be broken down into three groups since one group on the left is sitting down and the other two are standing. Since the people are standing close together we see them as separate groups

Kimberly Dunivan link

11/30/2016 06:18:07 pm

Proximity is evident in this image by three similar groups. The first group is quite obvious as it is the two women taking a picture with their camera. Move your eye up a tad bit and the next group is of the two babies playing. The last group is not as obvious, yet it can still be considered for the sake of proximity: the two faceless people in the top right corner. All of these groups could stand alone by themselves, yet would be considerably boring. As a result of being in the same image, these similar groupings are example's of proximity as well as Gestalt's theory " the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

Design Blog (2016)

August 28th, 2016

STUDENTS:
ONE SAMPLE OF GESTALT PROXIMITY

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Fall 2016

Design Blog (2016)

August 28th, 2016

STUDENTS:ONE SAMPLE OF GESTALT PROXIMITY

Leave a Reply.

Fall 2016

STUDENTS:
ONE SAMPLE OF GESTALT PROXIMITY