Gestalt, Graffiti and Design (2D Design)

On the train ride from Davis to the Bay Area, you notice a shift in landscape when you hit Berkeley. No, I’m not talking about the hippies I’m talking about the graffiti. One of the first things you notice when you take a train ride into an urban city area is the graffiti that lines the walls of tunnels, trains and building. At the time of the ride I was reading about Gestalt psychology and I wondered if the two were related…Gestalt is the psychology of visual perception, it is the principle of the “unified whole”. It means that when we look at something we first see the whole picture, and then we find patterns to unify the image. So, our mind is constantly seeking to find unity in so called “random” images. While looking out the window I couldn’t help but notice how the graffiti artists knowingly or unknowingly were applying this psychology to take advantage of our perception!

Graffiti many times is viewed from car windows or through moving trains, so the artist knows that their piece will only be viewed for a couple of seconds. Their job is conveying a message to the viewer within that time frame. Thus, they apply many Gestalt techniques such as proximity, repetition, and generalization to make the job of the viewer easier. So that the viewer is able to make the connections, distinguish a pattern, unify the image and get the message in a few seconds.

The graffiti letters in the “Angel” image are very stylized and could be unreadable if separated, but because they are so close in proximity to each other we can discern that a string of letters is actually a word. Also, the artist uses not only repetition of color and style but he/she also uses continuity as each letter is configured in such a way that our eye travels smoothly from one to another. Lastly, the arrows are used to unify the letters into one coherent image.

Finally, we are able to understand the idea of the artist because we can relate to the image. This is the case in the second image above. The graffiti artist depicts the person in a cartoony generalized way and according to Gestalt the more generalized a face is the more we see ourselves in it. This is because our perception of ourselves and our face (when we’re not looking in a mirror) is fairly general. So when we see a cartoony face or image we can relate to because we see ourselves in it. So, the second graffiti artist uses this technique to get the viewer to relate to the image/understand their message.

Good graffiti art can create quite an impact on the viewer in just a matter of seconds because it utilizes the uses principles of Gestalt psychology to unify an image and get the message across…much like good design.

Images courtesy of: (in order)

http://media.photobucket.com/image/graffiti/angel21_01/3674918058_8c7cd7492e.jpg?o=185

http://media.photobucket.com/image/graffiti/minhnguyen_01/4rum/graffiti_art18.jpg?o=181