Many of the recent materials covered in the “Intro to Design” class have changed my awareness on how to see, not only design principals, but the elements that make up our perception of design. I began to see animals in nature showing elements of design, and realize how smart these animals truly are when it comes to the ways they camouflage with the environment. I now understand the cognitive abilities of so many animals once viewed as unintelligent. My own intelligence was fooled, as I learned how color is perceived in the eye, and how illusions can play tricks on our eyes and the information they send to the brain. I now understand there is communication when these signals are sent to the brain, and that every living animal using non-verbal communication in some form or another. With all this information, I have gained a deeper appreciation for design outside the realm of the conventional terminology.
Starting with the Gestalt principals, I began to see how design can be found in nature. After reading about how animals use many of these Gestalt laws, such as the law of similarity, I discovered we have taken much of these same principals and applied them to many of our own designs like camouflage for the military. After watching the Nova documentary, “How Smart are Animals” I discovered how animals have the ability to change not only their color, but also their texture and shape to mimic their surroundings. The cuttlefish was an amazing example of Gestalt’s laws of Similarity to the extreme. I discovered that the cuttlefish can measure the amounts of contrast in its surroundings, and then alter its skin to display similar amounts of light and dark. It can create contrast in three different ways; uniform, which is very little contrast, mottled, which shows a pattern of light and dark bits, and disruptive, which has the greatest amount of contrast, it can even change the texture of its skin.
By understanding how animals use these principals I can see where many of the same concepts can be applied in design. There are many Gestalt principals that are used in the design of logos. An example of one of these laws is how we can group objects together or complete a line even if it is not completely touching. The logo for World Wild Life Fund is an example of this. You can complete the image of the Panda even if the line is not complete. Another logo that uses the Gestalt concept of Figure and Ground is the logo for FedEx. You can see the figure of the arrow between the letter “E” and the letter “X”. After learning several of the Gestalt principals, I now have more awareness of how to apply them to my own designs.
My biggest take away after reading “Seeing Black and White” by Bill Christ, was how the amount of light reflected by a surface into the eye is received. The key aspects to what we see however are types of surfaces and the intensity of light. This can change with the perception of color. I can relate a lot of this to how light effects Photography. One of the key aspects of photography is how light effects the subject in an image. The quality and type of light make a huge difference in how an image is portrayed. This is why many landscape photographers only shoot during the early morning or late afternoon when the sun is at the right angle to give everything a soft warm glow. This is called the Golden hour. It’s the best time to capture a photo because the intensity and illumination of the sun are just right and surfaces take on the perception of a warm color in the image.
Another great example of how we perceive color was in the Ted Talk by Beau Lotto. Beau shows several examples of how our mind will associate colors based off, not only the color of the objects themselves, but the space between colors. His examples show that our brain has a need to find patterns and a relationship in information and associate those relationships with behavioral meanings. I was surprised when Beau showed examples where the color I thought had changed was actually the same. My perception of the color changed because of the relationship the color had to the surrounding area. This shows that the light that falls onto our eyes can be very misleading. Beau made me start to question what I was “truly” seeing in the world around me.
Beau helped me to better “see” my world, and the last readings helped me to better understand communication within this world. I had not thought about how the inner workings of one’s body communicate in a non-verbal way as different parts of our eye work together to form an image, and nerves work together to send those signals to the brain. Before reading “Routledge Critical Dictionary of Semiotics and Linguistics” I did not realize how powerful these nonverbal communication techniques are. I found it amazing that bacteria, a single cell organism, can shift and share information in mere seconds and quickly adapt to new surroundings. These cues of non-verbal communication need to be recognized and reviewed when thinking of design. One wants to be sure their design conveys the correct meaning and these icons, indexes, and symbols need to visually represent the concept being expressed.
Each of these pieces of information broaden my understanding of what truly is “design” and how we perceive our surroundings can impact how we create and incorporate design. I feel enlightened, having gained insight into the way animals are designed and how well they can adapt to their surroundings. I understand how light can change the color of an object, and how non-verbal communication can be expressed in many different ways. I will look at my world differently as design can be found everywhere, not just in those things made by man.