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Symmetry Stands Out

Understanding the principle of symmetry can help you be a better designer, whether you are building an addition or decorating a living room.

Perhaps you have had this experience: It looked so great in the store. How comes it seems so inconsequential in my living room?

We have all thought something like this in the past. We pay good money because something grabs our attention, but that same item, placed in the context of our home, seems to lose something.

There is a reason why we perceive some things and not others, and there is a reason why we like some things and not others.

Gestalt theory was developed by German psychologists in the 1920’s. Gestalt is a German word meaning shape, and these scientists were trying to understand how we perceive things. They wanted to know how the human mind could look at something and identify what was the figure and what was the background.

The background is all the stuff that you don’t notice while you are focusing on the figure.  In Gestalt theory it is usually just called the "ground", so they talk about figure-ground relationship.

Your problem is that something that you want to be a figure ends up as the background. So how do you get that something noticed?

Those Gestalt psychologists developed eight basic organizing principles that our minds use to resolve all the visual information that comes in.

They are:

1. Simplicity
2. Similarity
3. Proximity
4. Symmetry
5. Closure
6. Continuity
7. Smallness
8. Surroundedness

Today I am going to focus on symmetry.

The principle of symmetry states that the eye will naturally pick out from the background items that are symmetrical about a point or an axis. In other words those items will become the figure.  We see symmetrical things better than we see asymmetrical things. Further, this symmetry is easy on the mind. It does not have to work hard to find it, so it pleased with symmetry.

In other words, a symmetrical object is more easily seen and more readily liked.

However, this covers more than just a single object. Groups of things that form a symmetrical pattern will be perceived as belonging together, and that grouping, because it is symmetrical, will stand out from the background clutter.

Consider this house. The house itself is not symmetrical. The left side looks different than the right side. Now, consider what stands out on this house. I’ve made it easy by highlighting what I am talking about in a second photo.

The entry to the porch and the second story oriel window are symmetrical. Our eye is drawn to those two areas.

What works for bringing attention to an entrance will also work inside a home. Creating a symmetrical pattern can draw people’s eyes to where you want them to go.

Of course its only one of eight Gestalt principles, which means there are other ways to make something stand out. I encourage you to take a look at all these principles as you work to improve your eye for design.

The Author

Joffre Essley writes about our houses and what makes them beautiful.

You can find Joffre, and his writings on Gestalt theory and house design, at www.house-design-coffee.com.