30SAL Challenge: Figure/Ground Initials

Today is Design Friday, so your challenge is something the graphic designers will likely be familiar with: figure/ground reversal.

“Figure/ground” is a phrase that came from modern German Gestalt psychology. It refers to how our mind organizes forms, distinguishing an object (figure) from its background (ground).

In the early 1900s Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin famously experimented with figure-ground perception, using black and white optical illusions that reversed, to study how humans perceive figure and ground.

Many artists and art movements throughout the 20th century have played with this figure/ground reversal idea. Perhaps the most famous and obvious examples are the creations by M.C. Escher.

In a good composition, all shapes, whether they are the shape of the object or the shape of the space around the object, are equally important. Figure/ground reversals are a great exercise for building appreciation and skill for composition. In addition, the exercise below will make you more aware of spacing, and whether or not shapes touch, almost touch, or overlap. This is very useful in your drawings and paintings!

Below are your instructions for the creative design challenge. Please read them carefully.

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Figure/Ground Reversal: Initials

Use your own initials to create a series of compositions that play with positive and negative shape relationships.

GUIDELINES:

• Create variations of your initials in any combination of lower or upper case. For instance, if your first and last initials are “LH” you can use LH, lh, Lh or lH. You can also just pick one letter “L” instead of two, and use the edges of the little composition to interact with, like this:

• You can use portions of letters. You do not have to use the entire letter.

• You can start by sketching lines with pencil, but complete this exercise in clear black and white shapes only. No blending, no texture, no lines.
• It’s ok (encouraged!) to let white shapes disappear into white background areas, and black shapes disappear into black background areas. Again, we don’t have to see the full letter for this to work. See example below.

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