This, to many, is a circle.
A recent Design Literacy project has helped me understand circles, both as the shape itself, and a whole (or hole, if you like puns) lot more than the mere form we have come to take advantage of in many aspects of our everyday lives.
Without context
A circle is a circle. It is a round shape. What else is there to it?
Stepping into a territory where the process was not the accustomed response to an ad campaign,or answering briefs from D&AD, for example, was rather daunting; meaning is everywhere, implications are everywhere, take it all away and what do you have?
Different aspects were considered, like space, dimensions, light, and the internal structure when the circle is interrogated visually. What happens to it when we disrupt the shape? What happens when we overlap more of the same size of circles? These superficial considerations helps us in understanding what the environment around (and in) the form, let alone ourselves, can do to the form that we see. It was no mean feat to begin a project like this when everything is usually implied. Understanding the capability (or limitations) of such a shape can be immense; once you get the hang of it, the mind can spin like a wheel (see what I did there?) and ideas will flow.
Context applied
Without either a beginning or an end, the circle's history is far longer than both the square and the triangle, and often related to the divine, the beginning of life. Since context is rather far-reaching (to many different things), below is a brief paraphrase from my written summary to give a rough idea of the direction I went towards:
Our association with circles, let alone shapes in general has been crucial in the evolution of visual communication: in my case, the progress established from form itself to the final outcome that questions the impact of communication due to the digital boom justifies how much the basic forms – the circle, square and triangle, have deeply ingrained into our society, nowadays often unconsciously due to the overwhelming amount of them around us; a Pointillist ad infinitum.
Something such as a circle to most people can be rather mundane, but have a look around you, how many things on your desk are round? The mug you drink out of, is it not circles overlapping on top of one another?
Conclusion: what is a circle?
Overall, the project took us out of our comfort zones and guided us towards looking at mundane things in an in depth way; the difference between the two sections of the project was between discovering the function and emotion of the shape. The underlying realisations of form within design can be found; almost like a self-realisation, just like the circle itself.
It is a mere circle, you say? Oh no, sir'ree.
