It's All An Illusion

Optical illusions have been fascinating scientists for centuries. Illusions are things that our mind creates out of what we see, despite what the true facts are. For example, the classic afterimage illusion. Joseph Albers describes this illusion in his book Interaction with Color. He tells us to look at a color, red, for 30 seconds, then look at a white piece of paper. We will see the color’s complement, green. The main scientific theory behind this is that the eyes contain nerves that sense the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow. When we stare at the red dot, the red-sensing nerves become fatigued, so that when we shift to the white paper we see a combination of the leftover nerves, yellow and blue, creating green. This and other illusions can be very useful in design. They can be used to create volume, like in the floor tiles of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, which make a pattern of 3-dimensional boxes out of strategic placement of lines, or to create optical interest, like the café wall illusion, where parallel horizontal lines are made to seem diagonal by staggered black squares. Certain areas of design, such as interior design, depend on optical illusions to create space and openness. Fashion design has also used optical illusions, the most recent example being Givenchy’s spring 2010 show, where black and white patterned leggings and tops created an illusion of movement, almost appearing to move themselves down the runway. They have also been used in many ad campaigns and other media. It is in these kinds of examples that design elements coincide with science through optical illusions.
(picture courtesy of style.com)

Subjected

Color is found everywhere in our world. Look out into the world and you will see a million colors reflected back at you. But color is simply a figment of our perception. As the philosopher Goethe said, perception is subjective. Our perception of what we see is based on our past and what has influenced and impressed us. Therefore, when I see blue, I may be reminded of warm past summers spent by the ocean, but you may be reminded of frozen winters in Maine. These memories affect how we feel about the colors, and consequently what our color preferences are. So what does this have to do with design? Color choices are integral factors in design compositions. The color a designer picks will influence the viewer’s opinion of the design, so the designer has to pick a color that is likely to evoke the proper sentiment. For example, in the latest spring runway shows, many designers, like Zac Posen and Versace, chose to work with traditional spring colors, pinks, greens, light blues, and oranges. The colors suggest youthfulness, fun, and energy, a few defining factors of the spring season. But other designers purposefully stayed away from using such colors to induce different emotions in the viewers. Balmain’s ready-to-wear line featured army greens, blacks, and golds, to suit a tough but luxurious girl. Had the same outfits been done in pinks and greens, this may have fell in with the perky lines of Zac Posen and Versace, but the color palate chose the gritty mood.
(pictures courtesy of style.com)

The Prince of Prints

The infamous Pucci and Missoni clothing houses are best known for one thing: pattern. Pattern is the predictable repetition of an element in an image. It is used to add texture and visual interest to an image. In design, pattern is an easy way to make a simple shape more dynamic. Pucci has designed simple beach-friendly clothes since the 1950’s, continually innovated by using variations on the house’s signature swirled, kaleidoscope patterns. These orange, blue, pink, and green patterns create a visual texture that granted the founder, Emilio Pucci, the title “prince of prints.”
The house of Missoni has also used their signature zigzag weaves to update simple knits. Their geometric prints not only have visual texture, but because of the knit fabric they are made in, have
tactile texture as well. Their patterns appeal to our basic love of texture, so it is almost an impulse to want to feel Missoni’s pieces. I remember walking through a department store and finding a beautiful Missoni knit zigzag shirt and instinctively reaching out to feel the texture that I could see in the pattern.
These two fashion houses have inspired so many others to invest in patterns as a way to enhance almost any design. Their inspiration does not only extend to fashion, but to art, interior design, and even food styling! Next time you shop, make sure to look out for patterns inspired by Pucci and Missoni, for these kinds of designs can be found almost anywhere in our society.
(Pictures courtesy of Fashion Models and Modeling Jobs and The Sartorialist, respectively)

You've Got Rhythm, Child

Rhythm is a phenomenon of nature that can be found anywhere. We can find rhythm in the dripping of a raindrop, in the buzz of a moving fan, or even in the repeated slats of a fence. Therefore, rhythm does not only apply to music, as it is typically referred to, but it can also apply to art and design. Rhythm is the repetition or alternation of elements of a creation. Applied to design, this means that repeated characteristics bring rhythm and unity to a creation.
Recently, I attended an art exhibit at the Nelson Art Gallery at UC Davis on quilts by African American artists. These quilts were perfect examples of rhythm in design as each one had repeating and alternating patterns. My personal favorite was Avis Collins Robinson’s “Piano Keys.” Flat lines of vivid colors cover the quilt, running into each other abruptly. Lines of similar colors, yellow, red, blue, and black, are repeated in varying lengths, bringing rhythm along with interesting asymmetry. This rhythm is not soft and quiet; the bright colors and flat lines create an upbeat, sharp rhythm that keeps the viewer’s eyes engaged with the image. It is as if we are looking at a quick jazz song interpreted into an art piece. The name “Piano Keys” reiterates the association of the piece with music. Viewing art such as this is a way to connect two parts of our society, music and images, into one creation.
(picture courtesy of my cell phone)

Trust Me

What do you do when a creative block hits? This is a classic dilemma that happens to the best of us at the most inconvenient times. For designers, this can be especially detrimental when a deadline is fast approaching and a prototype must be made for a client. Often it can spark our creativity to look at other’s work for inspiration. Sometimes when we are stuck on a design problem, it helps to see how others have solved their own design problems. Recently, I discovered a new forum for designers: “Design You Trust.” This is an open source website where anyone can upload images or videos of their favorite designs to show the world. The result is a social media tool that connects people with varying styles of design. There is everything, from T-shirt prints to illustrations to advertisements to store layouts to website designs to furniture. I even found a dynamic video about how to make a keyboard-playing cat out of paper. You can sort through conveniently categorized backlogs of postings to view thousands of designs and hopefully derive some inspiration from them. You can even connect with other designers by commenting on their work. It is social media such as this website that is opening the world to all designers, so that everyone’s creativity can be seen.
(Picture: Catacaos Chair by Otero, courtesy of Design You Trust)

Montesquieu and Design?

Design is a process of checks and balances. A designer must check and recheck their work through critique. A designer must also make sure that their design has balance, especially if there is one strong focal point to the design that could throw this off. This was the problem in Louise Black’s losing design on Project Runway. Louise created a short blue shift dress with two big ruffles intersecting in a V on the chest of the dress. The ruffles completely overwhelm the model wearing the dress because they are out of proportion with the small dress. They are too wide in relation to the base dress and stick out too far in front. They also do not follow the important Gestalt rule of continuity. Their abrupt intersection in the middle of the dress does not match any of the other vertical lines of the dress or the human body. Their disproportion may not have been so noticeable if the ruffles were designed vertically instead of in a V shape.
Ruffles have been very popular on the fashion runways recently, but normally in a much more toned down way. For example, look at these shoes by Elizabeth and James. The ruffles on the front are small, thinner than the width of the shoe and flattened down. They are also vertical down the front of the shoe, following the line of the leg. These ruffles give extension to the leg, a good design trait of any shoe. These shoes use ruffles in an effectively balanced way.
(pictures courtesy of mylifetime.com and shopbop.com)

Fully Engaged

When reading magazines or newspapers, most of us usually do not consider the enormous amount of thought that goes into the images placed before us in advertisements. Advertisements are designed to entice the viewer’s eyes and hold them, attracting them to the image in front of us. When flipping through a magazine recently, this ad for DKNY’s Be Delicious perfume did just that. The comic-like graphics create a unified design using two classic Gestalt principles: repetition and symmetry.

The repetition is seen in the layered apple shapes on the left, right, and bottom of the page. This repetition is broken by the one apple on the bottom right that has been turned into a perfume bottle. This break in repetition draws our eyes to the bottle, the item the ad is selling. But our focus is dragged around the rest of the page by the repeating similar shapes, allowing us to fully engage in the advertisement.

Another Gestalt principle, symmetry, pulls our attention to the focal point of the ad, the bottle. If a line is drawn down the center of the image, we can see that the shapes of the apples on each side reflect each other. The perfume bottle almost blends in with this symmetry, but its slight tilt and additional detailing sets it off from the rest, again gaining the viewer’s focus.

While Gestalt principles are meant to bring unity to a design, they can also be manipulated to emphasize the focal point of the design, like this advertisement does. This causes each viewer to immediately understand the point of the ad, so that all will be enticed by DKNY’s perfume.
(picture courtesy of Design You Trust, copyrighted by Donna Karan Cosmetics)