Gestalt Theory

in relation to visual perception; Gestalt principles, Gestalt theory of visual perception

(German: shape, form)

'Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a philosophy of mind of the Berlin School of experimental psychology. Gestalt psychology is an attempt to understand the laws behind the ability to acquire and maintain meaningful perceptions in an apparently chaotic world'

A House and the World, Tobias Gutmann

Recommended in my COP3 tutorial before end of 2nd year

Tobias is an 'illustrator' / visual communicator. He pursues many artistic projects, using drawing as a research tool, and exploring language and the communicative nature of the image.

This video looks at aspects of that. He chooses two symbols / icons that are very familiar to almost everyone - a house, and the Earth. He takes this idea out into the public (across many places) and collects research, asking strangers to depict what they think of when they hear the words 'house' and 'world'.

Even though my project is at its very early stages, it does relate to my interest in communicative visuals, poster art, public engagement with both of these things. I would also like to think of some interesting ways in which I can collect quantitative / qualitative data.

Design as Art, Bruno Munari | Notes 3

Munari's Useless Machines

Concave-Convex Forms
pg. 164 - 'I began making these forms in 1948, and exhibited them as objects to be hung from the ceilings of restaurants and so on. The slightest movement of the air makes them turn, and if you project light on to them they throw a constantly changing shadow on to the walls and ceiling'

'These objects were a by-product of my 'useless machines', and they are too fragile and therefore not easily saleable compared with things cast in bronze and destined to sit in museums, perfectly still, for centuries.'

Munari's projection slides

Projections with Polarized Light

pg. 188 - 'This kind of projection was the result of experiments I made in 1954, in the hope of obtaining effects with changing colours. My first ninety compositions for direct projection are now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York'

pg. 190 - 'These experiments gave me a whole mass of possibilities so that now I can compose a whole changing and living world of colours and images, all within the tiny scope of a lantern-slide'

'In the Home of the Future people will be able to keep a small box containing hundreds of 'pictures' for projection'

Theoretical Reconstructions of Imaginary Objects

pg. 204 - '...but we must not do this according to any rule of logic, but simply (as Hans Arp said) according to 'the rule of the moment'. We must 'feel' something that makes our hand move.

Design as Art, Bruno Munari | Notes 2

A Rose is a Rose is a

pg. 41 - 'The growing use of symbols such as roadsigns and trademarks on a worldwide scale demands absolute clarity of expression'

'It is no longer possible to confine oneself to local tastes'

'If a visual message is going to get across to people of different languages and backgrounds it is essential that the message does not lend itself to wrong interpretations'

pg. 41-42 - 'We are surrounded by countless visual stimuli, posters that flash past car windows, lighted signs, blinking lights, images that crowd in upon us on every side, and all intent on telling us something'

'We have already made a catalogue of stimuli in our own minds'

'...we arrange these images in order, rejecting those that do not interest us'

pg. 43 - 'so we all have inside us (naturally with some variation from person to person) groups of images, forms and colours which have exact meanings'

'It is true that a badly designed poster will have some effect if the walls are smothered with it, but a good posters would achieve the same results less wastefully by giving more pleasure'

'unhappily there is a lot of confusion and waste in these messages that surround us. They often weary us with their petulance, their insistence on cramming things we don't want down our throats and (what is worse) doing it clumsily'

The Stylists

pg. 45 - 'Styling is a king of industrial designing, and of all branches of design the most ephemeral and superficial. It does no more than give a veneer of fashion, a contemporary 'look' to any object'

'The stylist works for a quick turnover and takes his ideas from the fads of the day'

'The 'aero-dynamic' period was the golden age for stylists'

pg. 47 - 'What does fashion actually do? It sells you a suit made of a material that could last five years, and as soon as you have bought it tells you that you can't wear it any longer because a newer one has already been created'

A Language of Signs and Symbols?

pg. 76-77 - Hobo railroad signs / language of symbols

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Poster with a Central Image

pg. 84 - 'The old idea in advertising was that a poster should hit you in the eye...it is a way of getting information across to the average passer-by'

pg. 86 - 'There is one basic kind of poster that graphic designers often use, because it is so visually compelling. This is the Japanese flag, a red disc on a white background...'

'...the white background isolates the disc from everything around it, from the other posters, and because the disc itself is a form that the eye finds it hard to escape from'

Poster without End

pg. 88 - 'Posters are usually designed as single entities, enclosed within their particular dimensions, and then passed up on walls and hoardings three or four together and sometimes more'

pg. 89 - 'It is therefore in certain cases possible to design posters on the same lines as wallpaper...'

'...An Italian example of this...is the Campari advertisement displayed in underground stations...the red background holds the whole thing together, while the name of the product is cut to pieces and put together again in such a way as to make an endless game for the eye'

Children's Books

pg. 96 - 'In a book of mine in which I tried out the possibilities of using different kinds of paper, there is a cat going off the right hand edge of one page and looking - around the corner, as it were - into the next page. Lots of grown-ups never noticed this curious fact'