The Glitch - an example of abstractionism
Shreya Bansal & Vishali Srikanth
© Shreya Bansal & Vishali Srikanth
© Shreya Bansal & Vishali Srikanth
© Shreya Bansal & Vishali Srikanth
© Shreya Bansal & Vishali Srikanth
Any design is a complex coagulation of various simple elements such as lines, shapes and colours. Then how is it that the same elements make abstract design styles stand out amongst the rest? The answer is simple but the understanding is boundless.
Abstract design is one of the most out of the box design styles out there. It combines the simpler and subtler elements of a design to create a simple structure that is not so simple to visual receptors in the human eye. Our brain can't process images with repetitive elements placed closely. The points seem to blend into each other and yet differ at the same time. Our eyes perceive things just as they have existed since our brain started formulating and analysing our surroundings. So when there is something out of order, our brain tries to put it into a category and fails to create a feeling of captivity, the need to solve the puzzle, the curiosity to examine and categorize it.
Human nature is to find patterns in everything. It's like an instinct to us to group elements. A gradient is perceived as a set of colour, and when that gradient is repeated, we perceive it as a group being repeated. But when that pattern breaks, it disturbs the flow, it gives a feeling of jerk like our vision is jolted by the shock. If the order of colour are changed in the said repeated gradient, it makes us pause, differentiate, break in short glitch our system. We tend to move along a line, that can be organic, straight, zigzag, curved, dashed, circular, and many other forms. This is true for both our horizontal and vertical movements. When we move up a staircase with constant level change, our brain builds a rhythm. This movement can be either what our eyes follow, what footsteps or what ears follow, there is a rhythm, there is a flow. and The break has an impact. Slight change in the level difference, the rhythm breaks, and we lose our balance and tend to fall.
There once lived an elf
smiling flying upon my walls
he would jump around the doors
moving in the mazes painted upon the world
i once asked him
to show the world he sees
he took me to the moon
which did not exist
He took me to the corner
which were brighter than the sun
he took me to the hollow
and the rainbow painted willow
The room without the walls,
the cubes with the holes
And many more places with so much to see,
Wasn’t it a magic city?
Abstract design style helps us create magical and surreal spaces in 2D using simple elements to give a 3D feel. Little tweaks in the arrangement can alter the perception of the human eye much more actively than we think, the above poem gives us a perception of how the team members see the abstract spaces, magical and mystical.