The Brit Awards: Figure-ground principle.
The Brit Awards are the British music industry’s annual awards. Every year, at a star-studded ceremony held at London’s O2 Arena, musicians are presented with trophies for categories such as Best New Artist, and Artist of the Year. Winners are given a statuette to take home.
The statuettes themselves are a work of art, featuring Britannia. Since 2011, prominent designers have been invited to apply their own stamp on this design, with the designer of year’s statuette announced in 2024 as British-Nigerian artist Gabriel Moses. He produced a subtle variation on the original design, this year featuring a slightly slimmer and curvier version of the original statuette, apparently inspired by his childhood.
To show off the design though, the statuette outline is included in the Brit Awards logo each year. The statuette outline in white sits inside a large ‘B’ for the Brits, with the shoulders and base helping to create the shape of the letter. This is a clever piece of design and makes use of the ‘figure-ground’ principle.
The technique is reminiscent of the famous Rubin’s Vase image, whereby viewers are drawn to either the shape of a white vase or two faces looking inward. People naturally seek to establish the focal point in the image, just like viewing a photograph where we naturally recognize the difference between a focal object (or subject) and the background. The trick of Rubin’s Vase is that the focal point could be one of two things.
The Brit Awards logo does just the same thing. Our eye can either be drawn to the B shape, or the statuette. I imagine most people would spot the B first, before realizing that the B is actually only formed by the statuette shape. That realization causes a recalibration and then a focus on the shape of this year’s statuette and therefore recognition of the artist. This is a clever way to draw attention to the subtle design differences each year.
Photo by Tijs van Leur on Unsplash
