Figure and Ground: Notan as a Design I Problem: University, teacher version

Overview

This unit treats notan as what it is in a foundations course: a figure-ground problem with strict parameters. Students meet it through perception and design history, from Edgar Rubin’s vase and faces (1915) and the Gestalt psychologists who built on his work, to Arthur Wesley Dow’s Composition (1899), the Bauhaus preliminary course and Josef Albers’s paper exercises. They then work through a sequence of constrained studies in Studio Notan and in cut paper: edge only, nested, asymmetric and chromatic. The studio makes iteration cheap, so a student can test a dozen variations in the time one paper study takes; paper makes each decision permanent and puts craft on the table. Both are required, and the comparison between them is part of the work.

The unit is written against the Texas ACGM learning outcomes for ARTS 1311 Design I, with one relief study that looks ahead to ARTS 1312 Design II: a notan’s flip is a fold, and stopping it partway turns a flat study into a problem of planes and cast shadow. Students keep a process book throughout, present a final project in the studio and in hand-cut paper or brushed ink at presentation quality, take part in a formal group critique, and write a formal analysis that cites its sources. Each meeting is a 2-hour-50-minute studio, and outside work is assigned at the end of each one.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the unit, learners can do each of these. The middle column is what you will see or hear that shows it; the last column links to the standards it meets, quoted in full at the end of the page.

#	By the end, learners can	What you will see	Standards
1	Analyze figure-ground organization in historical works and in notan studies using Gestalt terms, locating where a reading reverses and which formal condition causes it.	In critique and in writing, the student names at least three Gestalt principles, such as closure, proximity and similarity, points each to a specific passage in a work, and states the condition that tips the reading: shared contour, relative size, enclosure, value or position.	ARTS 1311 LO 1 ARTS 1311 LO 2
2	Generate at least three solutions to each of four constrained studies (edge only, nested, asymmetric and chromatic) that satisfy every stated parameter, documented in a process book.	The process book holds at least twelve dated studies labeled by constraint, three or more per constraint, and a check against each brief finds no violations, such as an interior cut in the edge-only set or a mirror pair in the asymmetric set.	ARTS 1311 LO 3
3	Justify the choice of one study per constraint for further development by comparing it with a rejected alternative on formal grounds rather than preference.	For each constraint, the process book shows the chosen and a rejected study side by side with three to five sentences naming the formal property that decides it, such as contour ambiguity, distribution of weight or value interval.	ARTS 1311 LO 2 ARTS 1311 LO 3
4	Calibrate a chromatic notan so that hue and value do separate work: match a grayscale value plan, then make one ground color read as two by changing its neighbors.	The chromatic study shows a gray value plan, three palettes recorded by hex code whose grayscale versions keep the plan’s value order, and one annotated passage where the same ground color reads differently inside a hole and between flipped pieces.	ARTS 1311 LO 1 ARTS 1311 LO 3
5	Construct a hinged paper relief from an edge-only study, stopping the fold at chosen angles, and analyze how plane, angle and cast shadow change the figure-ground reading.	A relief with at least three hinged pieces is photographed under one raking light at two fold angles, such as 90 and 135 degrees, with a note that uses the terms of three-dimensional design, such as plane, relief, light source and cast shadow, to name where cast shadow becomes a third value and which region reads as figure at each angle.	ARTS 1312 LO 1 ARTS 1312 LO 2
6	Synthesize at least two of the constraints into a final notan, resolved in the studio and realized in hand-cut paper or brushed ink to presentation standard.	The final is presented as a studio export and a hand-made version mounted on board with clean, unfrayed edges, no visible adhesive or pencil, square corners and an even border, and the student names the two constraints and where each operates.	ARTS 1311 LO 3 ARTS 1311 LO 4
7	Critique peers’ finals in a formal group critique, separating description, analysis, interpretation and judgment, and proposing one testable revision for each work discussed.	The recorder’s notes show at least two substantive comments by the student on others’ work, each using at least two unit terms correctly and ending in a specific change, such as moving the largest piece to the bottom edge to settle the weight.	ARTS 1311 LO 2
8	Write a formal analysis of the final project in relation to one historical source from the unit, making an arguable claim supported by visual evidence and cited sources.	A paper of 1,000 to 1,500 words describes the work’s formal structure before interpreting it, makes a claim supported by at least three specific visual observations, and cites at least three sources, one of them primary, in a consistent citation style.	ARTS 1311 LO 2

Before you teach

What learners should already know

The elements of art and principles of design, from a high school art course or the first weeks of Design I.
How a notan is made: a shape cut from a sheet and flipped over an edge so the piece mirrors its hole. Students new to it read the Flipping chapter before the first meeting.
Basic handling of a craft knife, steel ruler and cutting mat; the first meeting includes a demonstration regardless.
Finding, reading and citing a scholarly source.

Vocabulary

figure-ground: The perceptual division of a visual field into a figure, which seems to have shape and stand forward, and a ground, which seems to continue behind it.
figure-ground reversal: A configuration in which either region can be read as figure, so the reading alternates, as in Rubin’s vase and faces.
Gestalt principles: Tendencies of perceptual organization described by the Gestalt psychologists, including proximity, similarity, closure and good continuation, by which parts are seen as wholes.
notan: The Japanese term for the arrangement of dark and light, which Arthur Wesley Dow made one of three structural elements of composition, with line and color.
constraint: A rule set by the brief that narrows the field of possible solutions, so that invention is aimed at a specific problem.
value interval: The difference in lightness between two areas. The interval, more than the hue, decides how clearly an edge between them reads.
simultaneous contrast: The shift in a color’s apparent hue or value caused by the colors beside it, described by Michel Eugène Chevreul in 1839 and demonstrated in paper by Josef Albers.
relief: A work that projects from a flat ground. Here, pieces folded partway on their hinges bring planes and cast shadows into the design.
process book: A bound record of sources, studies, iterations, rejected directions and the reasons for each decision, submitted with the final work.
formal analysis: Writing that describes how a work’s visual elements are organized and argues what that organization does, as the ground for any interpretation.

Materials

Laptops or tablets with Studio Notan open at /studio, one per student
Black text-weight paper cut to 6-inch squares, and white bristol or drawing paper, 18 by 24 inches or cut to fit, as grounds with room for the pieces that fold out
Color-aid or similar coated color papers, or Canson Mi-Teintes, for the chromatic and Albers exercises
White cardstock, 65 to 110 lb, larger than the study’s sheet so the hinges have card beyond its edge, for the relief study
India ink or sumi ink, round brushes in sizes 4 and 8, and hot-press watercolor paper or bristol, for ink finals
Craft knives with #11 blades and spares, self-healing cutting mats about 18 by 24 inches, cork-backed steel rulers and a sharps container
Acid-free PVA glue or double-sided archival tape, glue brushes, scrap paper for gluing, a bone folder and a brayer
Illustration board or mat board, 15 by 20 inches, for mounting finals
A clamp light or desk lamp for raking light, and a phone or camera to photograph reliefs and paper studies
A bound process book, at least 8.5 by 11 inches, per student
Projected images: Rubin’s vase figure, pages from Dow’s Composition, Bauhaus preliminary course studies and plates from Albers’s Interaction of Color
Printer access for exports and cutting templates

Read first in the guide

Hub activities to draw on

Space That Changes Sides Space · Developing
Balancing the Flip Balance · Foundation
Four Kinds of Opposite Contrast · Foundation
One Design, Four Palettes Color · Advanced

Worksheets

Worksheet 3: Chromatic notan and three values

Unit plan

Session 1: Figure, ground and the edge

2 hours 50 minutes · Studio, then paper and paint

Lecture, 30 minutes. Project Edgar Rubin’s vase and faces from his doctoral thesis Synsoplevede Figurer (Copenhagen, 1915) and ask students to say aloud when the reading flips. Explain his finding that a shared border seems to belong to only one side at a time, then the grouping principles Max Wertheimer set out in 1923, among them proximity and similarity. Close with Arthur Wesley Dow, who worked with Ernest Fenollosa, curator of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in the 1890s, and who in Composition (1899) made notan one of three structural elements, with line and color.
Studio demonstration, 15 minutes. A new design starts on a sheet 4 inches wide and 5.5 tall, so first set both width and height to 6 inches in the Paper section of the Controls tab, to match the paper studies. Then, with the Pen, click a point on one edge, where it snaps, place anchors into the sheet, end on the same edge and press Enter, which closes the path with a straight line along that edge. Choose an arrow in the ‘Flip direction’ chooser. Show that Undo straight after a flip reopens the chooser, so every edge can be tested for one cut. See Flipping.
Study 1, edge only, 60 minutes in the studio. Brief: every cut begins and ends on the sheet’s edge, so each hole opens onto the edge it folds over; at least three cuts; black front, black back, white ground. Goal: a design in which a space between cuts reads as a figure. Students make at least six variations and export each from the File menu as Artwork, PNG.
Pin-up, 20 minutes. Display every export. Each student names the variation in which ground most clearly becomes figure and the condition that does it: shared contour, enclosure, relative size or position. Note who cannot yet name a condition.
Paper, 45 minutes. Demonstrate the craft knife (see Safety). Students cut their strongest edge-only study in black paper on a white ground, gluing only after a dry-fit. Outside work: two more edge-only studies in paper, and process book notes on Dow’s chapters on notan.

Session 2: Nested and asymmetric studies

2 hours 50 minutes · In the studio

Review, 15 minutes. Students lay their three paper edge-only studies in a row. Ask the room which study is most ambiguous, and require the answer in the terms from the first meeting.
Study 2, nested, 60 minutes. Brief: at least two cuts are taken from pieces already flipped, and each nested piece goes over a different edge from its parent. Demonstrate: draw a smaller shape inside an existing hole, and the chooser’s arrows cut that part from the piece that came out of the hole and fold it over the chosen edge, while ‘Put back’ would return that paper to the sheet. Students make three variations and press Replay to check that the order of folds reads as one sequence.
Study 3, asymmetric, 60 minutes. Brief: no two cuts are mirror images, one piece is at least twice the area of any other, and the design must not lean when squinted at. Students make three variations, then use Move to select cuts and click the arrow beside a side of the selection box to refold them over other edges until the weight settles.
Pin-up, 30 minutes. For each constraint, each student sets the chosen study beside a rejected one and justifies the choice aloud in three to five sentences, then writes it in the process book. Push for formal reasons: “It is more interesting” is a preference; “The largest piece shares its contour with the ground on two sides, so it reads as ground” is an argument.
Outside work: the strongest nested and asymmetric studies in cut paper, and a reading on the Bauhaus preliminary course for the next meeting.

Session 3: Albers’s paper, color and the fold

2 hours 50 minutes · Studio, then paper and paint

Lecture, 20 minutes. The Bauhaus, founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, began every student in a preliminary course, first taught by Johannes Itten. Josef Albers taught in it from 1923 and set exercises in folding and cutting plain paper, to find what a material can do with as little waste as possible. Later, in Interaction of Color (1963), he taught color with sheets of colored paper, because paper gives flat, exact colors that can be moved and compared.
Study 4, chromatic, 60 minutes in the studio. Brief: take one earlier study and make a gray value plan by typing a middle gray such as #777777 into the Back card. Then give the Front a color of middle lightness by hex code, since a locked black, white or gray gives a harmony no hue to build on, lock it, and make three palettes, each with a different button under Harmonies, adjusting brightness until each palette’s grayscale version matches the plan. Finally, change only Front and Back until the Ground looks like two colors, inside a hole and between pieces. Record every palette by hex code.
Albers exercise in paper, 30 minutes. With Color-aid or similar papers, students set two small squares cut from one color on two different grounds until they read as two colors, then find two different colors that read as one. Both go into the process book, labeled.
Relief study, 50 minutes. This is the bridge to Design II (ARTS 1312). Explain that a notan’s flip is a fold stopped at 180 degrees. A sheet has nothing beyond its own edge to hinge to, so students draw the study’s sheet on a larger card, with card to spare beyond each edge the pieces fold over, then recut the study inside it, cutting every line except the stretch that lies on the drawn sheet edge, which they score with a bone folder as the hinge. They stand the pieces at 90 degrees, then lean them out to about 135, light the relief from one side with a lamp, and photograph each angle from the front. Ask: “Where has the cast shadow become a third value, and which region reads as figure now?”
Outside work: a final project proposal with three thumbnail directions, each naming the two constraints it will combine, for approval at the start of the next meeting.

Session 4: Final project: synthesis and craft

2 hours 50 minutes · Studio, then paper and paint

Approve proposals in five-minute conferences while the class works. Each final combines at least two constraints and is resolved in the studio first, with each version kept by Save project from the File menu so it can be reopened and revised. See File.
Set the presentation standard and show an example: a sheet sized so that it, every piece and a border of at least 2 inches fit on 15 by 20 inch board; square corners; cuts without frayed fibers or overcuts; no visible adhesive or pencil. For an ink final, the dark shapes are brushed in india ink on hot-press paper with edges as crisp as a cut. For a cut final whose back color differs from its front, glue the two papers back to back before cutting, so every flipped piece shows the back color.
Studio, 50 minutes. Students finalize the design, export Artwork, PNG and Artwork, SVG, and print the Cut lines SVG at actual size as a template, since that file is written at the sheet’s real size in inches.
Craft, 90 minutes. Students cut and dry-fit, then glue the sheet first and each piece after, at the mirror of its hole: as far outside its edge as the hole lies inside, and flush with the edge where the hole meets it. Circulate with the presentation checklist and look at every edge before glue goes down.
Optional comparison for the process book: photograph the paper version flat from straight above, open the photo in the Trace tab, and use Find sheet and Build flips to rebuild it as a studio design. Where the rebuild differs from the plan can show where the hand drifted; parts of a hole it cannot match to a piece come back as waiting shapes. See A photo of a paper notan. Outside work: finish and mount the final, and complete the process book.

Session 5: Formal critique and formal analysis

2 hours 50 minutes · Looking and talking

Hang the finals with their studio exports beside them and process books open. Explain the protocol: each maker speaks for two minutes on intent and constraints, then stays silent; critics describe, then analyze, then interpret, then judge, in that order; the instructor stops any judgment offered before description.
Assign roles so everyone speaks: two lead critics per work, named a week ahead, and a recorder who writes down each comment and its proposed revision. Each lead critic’s comments must use at least two terms from the unit vocabulary and end in a revision that could be tested.
After critique, 30 minutes. Each student reads the recorded comments on their own work and writes in the process book which revision they would test first, and why.
Introduce the formal analysis, 30 minutes: 1,000 to 1,500 words on the student’s final in relation to one historical source from the unit, due one week later. Model the structure: description before interpretation, a claim someone could argue against, evidence from the work, and at least three cited sources, one of them primary, such as Dow’s Composition, Rubin’s thesis in translation or Albers’s Interaction of Color.
Close with a quick write: one sentence each on what the edge-only, nested, asymmetric, chromatic and relief studies taught that the final used. Collect draft thesis statements for written feedback within the week.

Differentiation

Support

English language learners and other multilingual students: a bilingual glossary of the unit vocabulary, critique sentence frames such as “The ___ reads as figure because ___; I would test ___”, the option to outline the formal analysis in the home language before writing it in English, and a referral to the writing center.
Students with disabilities, with accommodations arranged through the campus disability services office: extended time on the final and the paper; ergonomic or spring-loaded scissors, or a guarded rotary cutter, in place of a craft knife; a larger sheet with fewer, larger cuts; and, where a pointer is hard to use, a partner who draws while the student directs, since the arrow keys, Tab and Enter answer the flip chooser but drawing needs a mouse, trackpad or touch.
Students new to notan or to studio work: the Flipping chapter and the Space That Changes Sides activity before the first meeting, and a one-on-one check of knife technique before the first paper study.

Extension

Carry the relief into a Design II problem: a freestanding structure folded from a single sheet with no glue, in the spirit of Albers’s preliminary course, photographed from three viewpoints under one light.
Set “Separate by” to Color in the Trace tab to build a notan from a photograph whose subject differs from its surroundings in hue but not in value, and analyze why a brightness split fails on it.
Research Swiss poster design of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Josef Müller-Brockmann’s concert posters for the Tonhalle in Zürich, and design a two-color poster on a grid with a notan as its image.
Write the formal analysis as a comparison of the final and one historical work on a single formal question.

Common misconceptions

The figure is whatever is black.: Swap the Front and Ground colors on the Color tab by dragging one swatch onto the other and ask what reads as figure now. Enclosure, relative size and position decide figure as well as value, and Rubin’s point is that a shared contour is given to one side at a time.
Constraints limit creativity.: Point to the Bauhaus preliminary course, where the limit was the method. Ask each student to show a variation the constraint forced them to find, one they would not have drawn freely.
The screen version is the real design, and the paper is only output.: Set the paper and studio versions side by side. Paper color, cut edges and, in the relief, cast shadow all change the reading. Craft is a design decision and is graded as one.
A formal analysis is a description.: Description is the evidence, not the argument. Require a claim someone could dispute, then the observations that support it, and return drafts that describe without claiming.

Assessment

Checks along the way

First pin-up: each student names the variation where ground becomes figure and the condition responsible; the instructor notes who cannot yet name a condition.
Second pin-up: chosen and rejected studies paired in the process book, each justification checked for a formal reason.
Proposal conference at the start of the fourth meeting: two constraints named and three thumbnails shown.
Draft thesis statement for the formal analysis, returned with written feedback within the week.

Rubric

Criterion	Beginning	Developing	Meeting	Exceeding
Constrained studies and process book	Fewer than three solutions for most constraints, or many studies that break their briefs; entries undated.	Most constraints have three solutions; a few break their briefs, and reasons for choices are thin.	Three or more solutions per constraint, all within parameters, dated and labeled, with a formal justification for each choice.	The studies push each constraint to an unexpected solution, and the process book traces a clear line of inquiry from study to final.
Figure-ground and value control	Figure and ground read one way only, and chromatic palettes lose the value plan.	Some studies reverse; palettes keep the value plan in part, or the one-color-as-two passage is unconvincing.	Reversal is deliberate and the student can name its cause; every palette keeps the plan’s value order in grayscale.	Ambiguity is controlled precisely enough to be a subject in itself, and color is used to shift the figure-ground reading on purpose.
Synthesis in the final project	The final repeats one study without combining constraints.	Two constraints are present but work separately rather than together.	Two or more constraints are combined into one resolved design, and the student can say where each operates.	The synthesis produces a result neither constraint could reach alone, and the relief or chromatic work visibly informs it.
Craft and presentation	Frayed or torn edges, visible adhesive, uneven border.	Mostly clean cuts with some overcuts or glue marks; mounting is square but the border is uneven.	Clean edges, no visible adhesive or pencil, square corners and an even border on board.	Work of portfolio quality: edges crisp at close range, mounting exact, and paper or ink choices that strengthen the design.
Critique and formal analysis	Comments are preferences; the paper describes without a claim or sources.	Comments use some vocabulary; the paper has a claim with limited visual evidence or incomplete citations.	Comments separate description from judgment and propose testable revisions; the paper argues a claim with three observations and three cited sources.	Critique moves the discussion for the whole group, and the paper connects the final to its historical source with an original, well-supported argument.

Safety

Craft knives take #11 blades, replaced as soon as they drag, and are used only on self-healing mats against cork-backed steel rulers, with the blade moving away from the body and the free hand behind the ruler; caps go on whenever a knife is set down. Used blades go into a sharps container, never loose into a trash can. Use acid-free PVA glue or archival tape; keep spray adhesive and rubber cement out of the studio unless a ventilated spray booth is available, since both carry flammable solvents. Work with ink and gouache in a ventilated room, keep food out of the studio, wash brushes at a sink, and follow the institution’s studio safety and disposal policies.

Standards cited

Texas ACGM, ARTS 1311 Design I (with a relief study toward ARTS 1312 Design II). Quoted word for word from the official text.

ARTS 1311 Design I

Design I (2-dimensional)

An introduction to the fundamental terminology, concepts, theory, and application of two-dimensional design.

ARTS 1311 LO 1: Identify and apply the elements of art and principles of two-dimensional design. Source
ARTS 1311 LO 2: Employ discipline specific vocabulary in the evaluation of two-dimensional design problems. Source
ARTS 1311 LO 3: Demonstrate creative skill in aesthetic problem solving within assigned parameters. Source
ARTS 1311 LO 4: Demonstrate an appropriate level of professional practice, including safety, craft and presentation. Source

ARTS 1312 Design II

Design II (3-dimensional)

An introduction to the fundamental terminology, concepts, theory, and application of three-dimensional design.

ARTS 1312 LO 1: Identify and apply the elements of art and principles of three-dimensional design. Source
ARTS 1312 LO 2: Employ discipline specific vocabulary in the evaluation of three-dimensional design problems. Source