Gestalt Session 04

February 2019

On a cold February afternoon, seven designers gathered with a couple bags of chips and a case of sparkling water and painted some lovely typography.

This workshop explores the principle of Gestalt known as Multistability, or “multiplied perception.” This concept states that the perception of an image can be multiplied wherein the interplay of shapes and space allow the eye to switch between multiple interpretations of the same image. The more famous example of multistability is the image of an old woman that could also been seen as a young women; the mind can never truly interpret both images at the same time, it can only “flip a switch” between the two.

Gestalt Session Four consisted of a single workshop split into two halves. The first half involved painting an A-Z alphabet with a very small set of supplies - black acrylic paint and cheap brushes. The twist unique to this fourth workshop was that each of the seven designers had been given 3-4 predetermined letters to work on and there would be no rotating worksheets around the table, a tradition seen in all other sessions. Designers were responsible solely for the handful of letters assigned to them. In addition, the time limit was also done away with. The second half repeated the exact same process, except the black paint was replaced with pink, yellow, blue, and purple paint, and designers were given a new set of letters to paint. In the end, the group created two unique alphabets that were then composited and superimposed over each other to create the final letterforms of Session Four, thus embracing the principle of multistability.

The team: (from left to right) Samantha Roth, Beth Fileti, Jeanette Pidi, Mike Sulick, Kati Pantone, Kevin Greene, and Alex Flannery. All session photography courtesy of Joe Piccirilli.