What is it about straight lines that makes us use them so much? I saw a poorly done sign with an arrow on it that was hand-drawn and it irked me. Why is it that straight lines are so pleasing to the eye? Is it the sense of order and cleanness? A friend was telling me about an artsy film that had no straight lines in it at all, and I remember thinking that was unique. Why do straight lines dominate man-made objects?
I would guess that we recognize straight, clean lines as pleasing in communications and design because this characteristic distinguished our initial attempts at written communication markedly from random patterns that would naturally form. If you wanted to draw marks in the dirt, or on a wall, and you wanted them to stand out, you’d try to make them as straight, symmetrical, evenly spaced as possible in order to distinguish from the ground. A straight line would say “this is artificial, and therefore should be paid attention to”.
Also, neatness represents informational efficiency. A set of straight lines forming the outside of an arrow, for example, uses the least amout of information necessary to convey the message. Additional information (scraggly lines, overlaps at the corners, the converging of two side-lines that indicates a change in the width of the object) send superfluous information and are distracting, and therefore displeasing.
We also like straight lines and even boundaries because they help us to read and they give us context quickly. If you are expecting to read from left to right across a horizontal line (as this is how we learn to read) and the line dives suddenly or crosses with another line, you will have trouble reading it.
For more insight on this, read of the work of Edward Tufte, whose books on information design are a genuine treat for the eyes and the mind of anyone interested in the sort of thing.
I hope they showed that film on an elliptical projection screen.
My computer vision notes claim that the human eye is especially apt at spotting vertical lines. Take that for what it’s worth.
The question of why they look good I will leave to others. The question of why straight lines dominates man-made objects admits of a more objective answer. I can think of numerous reasons.
1/ A structural member in compression (a strut) can take the most force for the least material if it is straight.
2/ A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. If you want to build something that has a bit that goes from here to there with the least material, a straight bit will do it most economically.
3/ [The mother of them all] To fit together, things need to be compatible shapes. The ultimate compatible shape is the straight line. Nothing fits together so universally as a bunch of straight things. This combines neatly with…
4/ Straight is an easily mass produced, repeatable shape.
As an illustration, if you’ve ever done any home renovation you will know that working on something that is all new and straight is easy. Everything is straight, and everything is at 90 degrees to everything else. Setting up your tools to cut compatibly is what they are designed for.
But once you work on something old and warped out of shape, all bets are off. Everything has to be cut to order and then painstakingly shaped to match. What would take you five minutes if everything were straight suddenly takes you an hour.
To build on the previous post…
Lumber for example is mass produced. It is milled by running lumber past a stationary saw. This is fast and efficient and produces straightness fairly easily. Running a (hand) saw over the wood is slow and inefficient. Aside from straight fitting together better, it is much cheaper.
Some great info here, thank you all. I think I’ll look a bit further into the psychological aspect (Edward Tufte, yes?), but the economical/practical aspect makes a lot of sense. I hadn’t even thought about the mass production factor.
In two theme park area designs (Mickey Mouse’s Toontown Fair at Magic Kingdom and Seuss Landing at Islands of Adventure) I know part of the design concept was to try to have little or no straight lines throughout that area of the park.
Stairs, paths, railings, building sides, windows, etc. all have a curve to them to make them cartoon like.
Straight lines in wooden furniture design exist for three reasons:
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For manufactured furniture, it’s easier to mass produce,
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For Shaker style furniture, eye-pleasing curves are considering unnecessary adornment and therefore, a vanity, and
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For hand-made furniture, it’s easier for the amatuer (like me) to build given their limited skills and tool set.
Tufte doesn’t really do psychology. Try James Gibson, Jacques Bertin, or Stephen Kosslyn.