In graphics one of the most over looked patterns is the checked pattern. The checked pattern or similarly the grid is a necessity for us to make sense of the complicated things around us. In graphics grids are used to gain perspective and measurements.

Josef Albers famously experimented with checks and squares in his series “Homage to the Square”. He explored form, texture and colour. As well as being an artist Albers was a mathematician as well. Many of his painting are a precise configuration of squares overlapping each other in diminishing scale.

His work looked at the experience of colour from a subjective point of view. As well as the effects adjacent colours have on each other. He discovered that one colour in between two colours would take on the same hue as those colours. He called this the interaction of colour. This would give the illusion that the painting was receding or advancing towards you. The op art movement frequently used this technique.

Albers chose the square as his subject for exploring colour because of it’s neutral properties. The square has a plainness about it that enables it to show an idea without being the subject. If Albers had used circles instead of a square it would have become about the pattern the circles created rather than the idea. The square has been called a tool of abstraction. This is largely due to it’s usage by masters such as Picasso or Braque during the cubist movement. The cubists wanted to explore the form and volume of their subjects, the square (or cube) allowed them to do this without it becoming about the squares. The subjects were still subjects in their own right.

The square is logical and serves it purpose. From cubism to modernism it was used as a tool for expression rather than a subject of expression. As mundane as the square is it is essential in any graphical work. It represents structure and organisation. It is a language that everyone can understand.

Perhaps it is this notion of squares being like a universal language that has made them so versatile. Many people would associate Burberry with Britain. It is recognised all over the world as a symbol of something, a symbol of a certain culture. It can communicate so much and yet it derived from something as simple as the square. The classic Burberry colours are all of a similar hue, as in Albers work.

In graphics we often try to jump ahead of ourselves, or over complicate things. If we design something we do our best not to make it “boxy”. It must look smooth and rounded to be complete. We are neglecting squares in design. What is wrong with right angles? What is wrong with something having an edge to it? Almost everything I see in design now, from cars to phones, to furniture, feels it cannot have any harsh corners. Everything must flow; everything must be smooth and chic.

I reject this ideal. An idea starts with a square.