Surface Design Study

What Makes A Pattern Satisfying to Look At?

            In my spare time or during the time I am procrastinating on my school work, I like to make bracelets or necklaces using pearl beads. Often, I would hold it up mid-way and just admire it for what it is. 

I have noticed that these patterns are satisfying to my eyes and brain:

But this one is not:

Now, why is that?

             It is due to Visual Unity. Thru balance, repetition, and symmetry, we accomplish visual unity. Visual Unity means that a congruity or agreement exists among the elements in a design; they look as though they belong to each other, as though some visual connection beyond mere chance caused them to come together. 

               Balance talks about the composition within a frame. The fact that the visual weight of the pearls on the right and pearls on the left side of the center pearl on the "satisfying" patterns, makes the composition balanced and makes it nicer to look at, compared to the "unsatisfying" design which is compositionally heavier to the right.

                    Repetition allows a pattern or design to relate to the other parts. Our brain likes to problem solve by predicting the next move thru patterns, and when the outcome is predicted, we like it. But if the outcome is too random, the brain doesn't like that. 

                 Symmetry is the visual quality of repeating parts of an image, pattern, or design across an axis, along a path, or around a center. All of the images with "satisfying" patterns have horizontal symmetry and vertical symmetry if the middle pearls for each of the images are the center axis. On the "unsatisfying" pattern, only has a horizontal symmetry.

                All of these allow us to trick our brains to think that a pattern makes sense even though there might not be a reason for it to make sense. 

So yeah, just wanna share that lol ....Anywayyyyyssss...

The following are patterns that I found pretty cool.

Lace Pattern My Nightgown

A Pattern From My Skirt

These 2 are both from my closet. I was too sick to be out these pass few days so I didn't have much time to explore tbh. 

This is from my roommate's dress

This is also from her closet, a different dress

These are all her church clothes

She goes to church a lot. I guess one of us has to.

Asymmetrical design that I like.

Great example of Radial symmetry
It's from an incense box

                

        

Here is an attempt to do a pattern on illustrator... I didn't like it... I will sketch out a thumbnail instead