Laws of Pragnanz

Kohler, one of the influential Gestalt psychologists, described laws of pragnanz that, he said,
determined which gestalts would be formed from ambiguous stimuli. In German, pragnanz
means clarity, so laws of pragnanz are laws of clarity. The most common translation is laws of
good form. A law of pragnanz identifies an organizational tendency, a way in which the human
brain decides that things go together.

What does "pragnanz" mean? What are the principles or laws of similarity, proximity, continuity,
and closure?

One of Kohler's laws of pragnanz involved similarity. Similarity among components encourages
an observer to organize them into a figure. Proximity is another law of pragnanz mentioned by
Kohler. Proximity is closeness. Objects close to each other tend to be perceived together in one
form or gestalt.

In order from left to right: closure, symmetry, continuity, similarity, and proximity.

In the first illustration, one can see a rider on a horse despite the fact that major portions of the
figure are missing. This is called closure because the perceptual system closes the gaps
automatically. The second examplethe triangle behind the ballillustrates the effect of
symmetry and also continuity (symmetry is present because the left and right halves of the
triangle are mirror images of each other; continuity is illustrated because we assume the bottom
edge of the triangle continues behind the ball). The third example, the broken circle, illustrates
continuity. The elements are seen as a circle rather than just line segments, because the segments
are lined up in a continuous curve. The same figure illustrates closure because the continuity
encourages us to fill in the gaps and see a circle. The fourth example shows similarity, because
we group similar items together and tend to see four columns rather than four rows. The fifth and
last example shows the law of proximity or closeness, because it is easier to see four rows rather
than four columns when the elements are so close together.

Why is "closure" useful?

A famous demonstration of "closure"

The dog with his nose to the ground is a famous example of closure. When you see the dog, it
suddenly becomes solid. A gestalt is formed. Your perceptual system succeeds in connecting the
pieces (closing the gaps, so to speak) and you perceive an object.

Our perceptual systems need this ability because often our view is partially blocked or obscured.
Without closure, we could not recognize objects seen through a bush or a rainy window, or when
other objects blocked part of our view. Because of the visual system's ability to create closure,
humans are very good at creating a gestalt or perceptual object out of the mere suggestion of an
object.
Simplicity, Symmetry and More: Gestalt
Theory And The Design Principles It Gave
Birth To
Great designers understand the powerful role that psychology plays in visual perception.

What happens when someones eye meets your design creations? How does their mind react to
the message your piece is sharing? As an amateur or professional designer, its important that
you can answer these questions.

Understanding how a design is perceived and interpreted is a crucial asset that visual
communicators must possess. We cannot possibly influence human perception with our designs
if we dont understand the driving forces behind them.

In this article, Ill share the basic principles behind Gestalt, a psychology movement that evolved
to help us understand how viewers make sense of the visual stimuli that we design for them.

What is Gestalt?
The word Gestalt is German, and literally stands for a pattern, figure, form or structure that is
unified. Gestalt Psychology, a movement that took off in Berlin back in the 1920s, seeks to make
sense of how our minds perceive things in whole forms, rather than their individual elements.

To understand what Gestalt Psychology attempts to explore and unpack, think of how your mind
automatically perceives the face of a person you know well. This is so even though the face is no
doubt made up of the same core features as any other: nose, ears, eyes, etc. What your mind does
the making sense of the features as a whole is where Gestalt Psychology finds its focus.

How did Gestalt Psychology change the game?

Ever heard of Pavlovs dogs? Pavlov was a Russian psychologist active from the late 1890s. He
(accidentally) founded the idea that we could influence behavior by using rewards (he used food
as the reward and tested its impact on the behavior of his dogs). The theory was known as
classical conditioning, and it still impacts the world of marketing and design today. Gestalt
psychologists, unlike their colleagues, thought that processes like perception, learning and
cognition werent that simple, and couldnt be understood by splitting them in parts. Instead,
Gestalt psychologists were interested in complex ideas like insight, holism and problem-solving;
and, if youve been in the design world for enough time, you probably are too.

How is Gestalt related to visual perception and design?

Soon after it was introduced in psychology, Gestalt was applied to the field of visual perception
by theorists like Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka. The main idea was that
when we perceive the world there are many different signals coming in at the same time. To
organize them, and avoid going crazy, we visualize our surroundings as unitary forms or groups.
Just how we go about deciding that some objects go together would be the main obsession of
Gestalt psychologists and designers for decades to come.

The Gestalt Principles in Design

Over the years, Gestalt psychologists have come up with lists to summarize basic principles of
visual perception, which have become invaluable tools for designers. As mentioned above, these
principles try to explain when and how our minds perceive different visual components as being
part of the same group. The principles explained below are a combination of those proposed
originally by Max Wertheimer (1923), Stephen Palmer (1999, 2002), and other contemporary
Gestalt theorists.

01. Simplicity
The law of simplicity indicates that our mind perceives everything in its simplest form. The
image below, for example, when studied in depth is made up of individual components that have
no meaning when viewed separately, yet our mind automatically perceives them in combination
to spell out the word logo.
Its important for designers to understand the law of simplicity because when its combined
artfully with creativity, the two can be harnessed to produce truly stunning designs. Mastering
design simplicity requires you to balance two often competing considerations: the use of
uncomplicated shapes and objects and the need to produce striking design effects. This example
does it perfectly using simple elements and objects in combination to produce a unique and
captivating representation of a guitar.
Essentially, simplicity is about helping the eye find comfortable figures used to trigger an
interpretation of what we are trying to show.

02. Figure-ground
The figure-ground principle helps to explain which element in a design will immediately be
perceived as the figure and which will be perceived as the ground. The figure is the element in
focus, while the ground is the background behind the figure.

There are two other related principles you will need to understand before you will be able to
answer this question:

Area: The mind often perceives the smallest object in the composition as the figure, and
the larger as the ground.

Convexity: Convex elements are associated with figures more often than concave.

When you look at the image below, your perception of which is the figure and which is the
ground alternates depending on how your mind perceives it. In one instance, it appears as if the
black hand is the figure and the white is the ground, and in another it appears as if the white head
is the figure and the black is the ground.
Applied in design, figure-ground can make a significant difference in the way your piece
communicates a message. In this ad for Melbournes Food & Wine Festival (2007), the wine
bottles are strategically placed to create the illusion of a fork. In combining objects related to
wine and food, this design conveyed the events message much more compellingly.
This poster for the film Peter and The Wolf exemplifies the great creative potential in using the
figure-ground principle to your benefit. On one hand, you get the image of a long wolfs body.
When you shift to looking at the white in the image (previously ground) as figure, you
immediately spot a mans silhouette which we can assume is Peters.
03. Proximity
We perceive elements as belonging to the same group if they are laid out close together. As an
example, think about how proper kerning can help the eye understand which letters make up
individual words. In some cases, excessive spaces between letters can cause confusion as to
when one word ends and the next begins. In the example below, our mind perceives each of the
proximate vertical bars to combine and form a single image of a deer.
The principle of proximity is also effectively applied in Unilevers logo. Since the small figures
are laid out closely to each other, you can easily perceive the cluster as a U (in Unilever).
According to their brand site, their logo was designed to include 25 icons, each of which
represents something important to Unilever.
In the poster below, Coke wanted to convey happiness (one of its core brand values) by creating
the shape of a smile using bottles. The fact that they are placed near each other in such a
deliberate fashion helps the viewer perceive that smile.
04. Similarity
We perceive elements as belonging to the same group if they look like each other. The principle
of similarity can be triggered using color, size, orientation, texture and even fonts. When laying
out a multi-page document, for example, creating a strong type scheme will help readers
understand which chunks of text are captions, which are headlines and which are body copy.

In the image below, our mind perceives the similarly colored circles not as individual circles but
as combining to form rectangles, squares and lines separate from those of another color.
05. Common Fate
When visual elements move together in the same direction, we see them as part of a single
group. Our eye is drawn towards figures that are moving together, and this principle is
particularly important for 2D and 3D animations.

In the image below, because each of the individual birds are travelling in unity in the same
direction our mind perceives them as forming part of a single group, carrying away a captured
fish.
In this poster for Street Scene, an American opera by Kurt Weill, the grey letters are perceived as
part of the same content block (title) because they are not only similar (see Similarity principle
above), or tightly kerned (Proximity above), but also apparently moving in the same direction.
06. Symmetry
Symmetrical elements are perceived as part of the same group. Have you ever looked at figures
that look like mirror reflections of each other? This relationship helps us perceive these elements
as a single figure.

In this poster for the Bike Expo in New York, the design concept aimed for a unified circle as the
main focal point. To create the circle, the designer portrayed one half as a bike wheel and one
half as a manhole cover. While different in texture and color, the fact that they resembled a
symmetrical figure unified them in the eyes of this posters audience.
Parallelism
Elements with the same or very similar slopes are associated as a single group. When designing,
we often change the inclination of our texts to match surrounding arrows or curves because it
makes the entire figure look more visually compact. In this poster created to advertise the font
Futura, different text areas are grouped using the principle of parallelism.
07. Continuity
Elements are visually associated if they are aligned with each other. Lines are perceived as a
single figure insofar as theyre continuous. The smoother their segments are, the more we see
them as a unified shape.

This Christmas card by Publicis Singapore portrays how the principle of continuity can help us
create shapes. The sharpened pencils thin green line helps guide the eye from the top of the
composition to the bottom, creating a Christmas tree shape in a very unexpected way.
08. Closure
We perceive elements as belonging to the same group if they are part of a closed figure. A great
opportunity to explore the closure principle is logo design. Fedexs logo hides a right arrow
that not many have been able to spot throughout the years. By creating that negative space
between the E and the X, and adding the illusion of closure by kerning the two letters very
tightly, the arrow becomes visually apparent:
09. Common Region
When we find several elements that are part of a single region, we associate them as a single
group. Consider a design for a badge where there is a combination of text, objects and a banner.
All three of those elements are perceived as belonging to the unified badge.

In this poster for Pixars Inside Out, artists Stacey Aoyama and Eric Tan use the common region
principle to unify the movies characters inside a single human silhouette. As we visualize them
inside the same region, we perceive them as coexisting within that space. If youve watched the
movie, you know that this is largely its goal: to show that positive and negative emotions coexist
in our minds to shape our behavior.
10. Element Connectedness
We perceive elements as being united if they are connected by other elements. An easy way to
think about this principle in action is an infographic or flowchart where arrows help connect one
figure (or text block) to the next.

In these pieces by Jonathan Calugi for Harvard Magazine, the objects are unified by a line that
runs through the entire composition bringing unity and a sense of visual cohesion despite the
amount of activity.