Gestalt, is a German word meaning ’shape’ or it may als0 be referred to ‘whole’.  Gestalt emphasizes upon tendencies of people to simplify the visuals or organise the elements in groups, or look at these as ‘one whole’. Gestalt uses simple principles to explain these human tendencies of perceiving the objects or visual elements.

Similarity, proximity, figure and ground, closure and continuity are the principles that Gestalt theory talks about. I will catch with all these one by one. Starting with similarity in this post,

1. Similarity

This occurs when objects in a group have similar qualities like similar shapes, similar sizes or similar colours. The similarity within these objects make the composition look one or whole. Look at the example below:

Similarity by shape:

The elements in the picture have similar shapes, but different colours and sizes. This similarity in shapes make the composition look one.

Similarity by size:

The elements in the picture below have varying colours and shapes, but sizes (of many elements) are similar. This similarity in sizes of the elements creates a strong bond within the group and thus making the composition look one.

Similarity by colour:

In the picture below, the principle of similarity has been aceived by keeping the colours similar (not same). These colours belong to one family (of red). This helps me creating a visual connection between the objects and making the composition look one and whole.

Next week we shall look at Proximity.

Hope you enjoyed the post. Do feel free to post your comments and feedback.

Our minds are comfortable with the “state of equilibrium”, or in other words everything that is not resting in place, disturbs the mind. Look at things around, if your mind feels that something or other is missing, something is too much or something needs to be moved from its place to some other place. Its the state of imbalance. look at the figure below:

In this image we somehow feel that the black square should rest in the middle of the bigger square. because it has neither moved sufficiently away from the middle nor it is near the edges of the bigger square. Something appears to be incorrect, or unintentional. This is the state of imbalance.

Now let us discuss the image below:

Contrary to what we saw in the first image, the black square has moved sufficiently away from the middle of the bigger square and has established its relation with the left top corner. Our minds find this situation much more comfortable than the situation in the previous image. This position may be the “just correct” position, where we feel, its an intentional attempt.