Visual Perception

Before you start planning a design – there are few things you need to consider. The important one is understanding that every image has a way of communicating some kind of message. And it is your job, as a designer, to use it properly to communicate exactly what you intend to.

Designers work with
principles of perception….
These principles explain how brain processes visual information.

Image – is more than what you see with your eyes. It’s how your brain reads and interprets it.

Any image or even a weird-looking mark like an ink spot stimulates an immediate response from your brain.

Your brain will search through your memory catalog for the easiest possible explanation based on your experience.

What is it?
Have you seen something like this before?

Your brain will always look for the easiest possible solution

And it will jump at the first familiar association it can find.

When your brain receives a visual information – it looks for an explanation.

Is there enough information for you here to interpret it?

You can have some ideas, but obviously not quite enough visual data to explain what the picture is about.

It’s pretty much open for interpretation

Now you have a little more information

One more detail – and you can interpret and see it as a horizon line with a mountain range

Think about it:

Things might not be the way we think they are…..

What we see is affected by the context and the surroundings.

Kurt Koffka, one of the three founders of Gestalt psychology, described a remarkable effect of placing a grey shape over different backgrounds..

It’s called Koffka Ring

How many variations of grey can you see?

When the design is split – you can easily see the difference in the ring halves.

Can you tell which one is darker?

When the design is shifted – this difference becomes more obvious..

But when the 2 halves are aligned – you realize that the ring has a single solid grey tone all around.

…and actually had it all along

How we see things is always affected by our personal experience and background.

How many of you remember or recognize what this is?

Well, some of you might even remember using it, like me

But for many – it became a symbol of “save” action when we need to save our work on a computer.

If you did not have this prior knowledge, most likely you would not be able to identify this as a floppy disk.

Context of the graphics is extremely important as it can change the way we react.

Using just these two basic geometric shapes you can communicate different messages.

But when you arrange them like this – you understand what they stand for. Especially if you see these on a door-sign.

Part of your personal experience is your cultural exposure.
And I do not mean how often you go to a museum

Or how many books you read in a month.

I’m talking about the social culture. It does affect how you see things.

We are so used to this shape meaning STOP, that sometimes we do not even need a red color
or text inside the shape to get the message.

The shape communicates alone!

And there are so many other symbols and signs that we are so used to and react to in our culture.

We interpret visual elements without even thinking of how it’s done.

Here is how we interpret some basic things when we see them.

Based on how a graphic element is placed in a picture affects how it’s being read.

The principle of gestalt states:

“The sum of the whole is greater than its parts”

As you look at this ..
… what do you see?

Do you see an old fashioned bicycle

Or

A frame, wheels, and a bunch of parts?

If you are human – you saw a bike.

We, as humans see whole before we see parts.

At the very first glance: what did you see – face or fruit?

Most likely you saw the mango person!

You know why? 

Because you saw the whole picture first,

Your first impression was that it was a face

And only after that you recognized the fruit.

While each of the individual parts have meaning on their own – they are fruit, when these parts are put together the meaning may change. 

There are 5 basic principles of visual perception, according to Gestalt psychology:

• Similarity – we visually group similar elements
• Proximity – we visually group objects that are close
• Continuity – We move our eyes from one object to another as we would we follow a path
• Closure – we finish incomplete shapes
• Figure / ground – We see foreground and background on a flat surface

So before you start planning a design, remember that it will be read and interpreted

See more information about Gestalt here:

Gestalt Principles

It will be viewed and read based on what we just discussed:

• Personal experience
• Context
• Cultural system of symbols
• Interpretations
• Gestalt principles