Figure and Ground

What does figure and ground mean when talking about design.  The figure is the objects or subjects in a design.  The figure is what first catches the eye of the viewer when looking at a design.  The ground is the background or negative space of a design, and is equally important as the figure.  An effective figure and ground relationship is critical for an effective design.

This relationship is very important in our first tile project.  The letterforms are the figure and the whitespace is the ground.  The letterforms make interesting forms but the ground makes interesting forms as well.  In some of my designs I scaled the letterforms to take up the whole composition.  By doing this it created a lot of whitespace in the background.  I worked to make the background equally as interesting as the foreground.  This is a skill I need to work on but one that I am improving at.