

The Psychology of Shapes in Designĭesigners use shapes to express different ideas, create the notion of movement, offer texture and depth to an image, suggest a mood or emotion, or emphasize an area of interest. Now, let’s dive deeper into shape meanings and learn how you can integrate them into your visual communication strategy. Symbols that you see and use in your everyday life, such as mobile app icons, can be placed in this category. For example, a stick figure is an abstract shape depicting a person, or typographic glyphs can illustrate letters. These illustrate organic forms or everyday objects, even though they are not an exact representation. Rarely, these shapes can be human-made, like ink blobs. Opposite to geometric shapes, these are asymmetrical, or imperfect but necessary and comforting shapes encountered in nature.Įverything that was created naturally can fall into this category, such as leaves, rocks, or clouds. In kindergarten, we learned shapes through play before we learned about letters, so it’s only natural to feel acquainted and drawn to something we’re used to. They are so familiar to us because we started seeing and drawing them since we were kids. Circles, squares, triangles, pentagons, hexagons, or octagons are instantly recognizable. Probably the most commonly used, the geometric shapes come first to our minds. There are three main shapes you can use in your designs: 1. Sometimes the best way to create a compelling design means reducing it to its most basic shapes. Otherwise, they work as an accessory, for various visual marketing materials such as presentations, infographics, or social media visuals.īut what’s the best shape you can use to send the right message? 3 Types of Shapes in Design They can work as a standalone design if you need to send a direct message. Most of the shapes rely on cultural conventions or nature silhouettes, which makes them familiar to us. By adding a third dimension to them, you can create forms, which is a different element altogether.

In graphic design, shapes are two-dimensional figures in a layout with clear delimitations at the edges. In this article, we’re going to talk about the psychology behind geometric shapes, how all the objects surrounding us can be associated with basic shapes, what are the main shape meanings, and how you can use them to influence your visual marketing strategy. This means that you can use them to create graphic design materials that evoke particular emotions.Ī powerful communication strategy is all about pairing the right message with a great design to achieve the desired results.

What’s interesting about shapes is that they can make us feel a certain way. Our everyday life means constantly interacting with different objects, which resemble various shapes, from basic to abstract ones.
