Field Journal

Let’s begin with is single question. What’s “middle”?

Just like my other classmates, I am now studying history of design. Finally, my textbook brings me to the modern age. Within the modern design, I found an interesting thing, regarding to a mental process of human being. Design is all about what you want audiences to see. Thus, design is well related to how people see. In order to modify the skill of design, it’s always good to question how people see mentally.

We could see design in the view of psychologists. Cognitive psychologists prove that people in the entire world don’t actually see what the exact sight. Our minds always misdirect us to see something else, beyond the reality. There are so many errors that made by ourselves when we look at something. Beyond psychologists, most of the designers know it too. There is an untold secret in the world of design.

Human beings don’t see middle when they look at middle. For example…

I put the word in the exact middle of the picture, however, you would feel like the word has fallen down a little bit, instead of being in the middle. Honestly, people feel more comfortable while they are looking at something actually above middle. Remember, psychologically, this law dose not applies to the designs that are a bunch of stuff. This law is well known in the world of design certainly. The pictures below are all found in my textbook, which is Meggs History of Graphic Design.

I did a few notes at the side, so that you could see it clearly. The red line is the exact middle. The main words or images are always a bit upper than the middle. Then, why? Why did the designers choose to put the words and images above? Why not middle?

Audiences would feel seeing them in the middle if they don’t really measure them. Most likely, audience would feel more comfortable when they look at something above the middle. If they were in the exact middle, ironically, it would seem like they have fallen down.

Currently, the modern designs don’t usually make the whole graphic design rich. Instead, designers nowadays love to make design simple. It is common that there are just a few words in the “middle”, while the rest remain blank. “Simple is the best,” right? When we decide to something like that, it’s better to put the main words or images a bit above the exact middle. It makes audiences see those things more likely to be in the middle.

Image

1. This is just my work.

2. Herb Lubalin and Etienne Delessert, pages from Fact, 1967.

3. Paul Rand, IBM package design, late 1950s.

Works Cited

Meggs, Philip B., Purvis, Alston W., Meggs History of Graphic Design: Fifth Edition. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Print.