An Exercise in Gestalt

An Exercise in Gestalt
An Exercise in Gestalt
Posted on September 20, 2005 in Inspiration
(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:28 am)

A friend and I were going over one of his recent business card designs, and I made a comment about how grouping and spacing affects the way elements on the page are perceived. He asked for clarification, and I said:

This is three dots:

    o   o   o

…but this is a story:

    o o     o

A little gestalt goes a long way :-) I’m sure I got this from somewhere, probably Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. Tufte has a lot to say about these kinds of relationships also, though a specific citation eludes me at the moment.

UPDATE: If you’re scratching your head thinking that the dots look exactly the same, it’s because your RSS reader is messing up the formatting of the text. Sigh.

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5 Comments

  1. John Zeratsky 19 years ago

    Beautifully put, David. And right on.

  2. anon 19 years ago

    That is so elegantly simple. I love it. Fritz Perls would love it. Thanks.

  3. If Else 19 years ago

    I agree, that’s a wonderfully elegant example.

  4. Carolyn 18 years ago

    Love this, David!

    And the comment about a Threadless submission? Absolutely!

  5. Mihaela 15 years ago

    This is great!