An Outcast's Uniform
One theory is that there is a natural symmetry to stripes, since even one colored bar separates a visual into two sections. The mathematician George David Birkhoff even came up with a formula for aesthetics, which stated that people enjoyed art more when there was more order than complexity. For stripes, there is enough complexity in the design (multiple lines) but an overpowering sense of order (all straight and in a parallel row) to make it very pleasurable to the eye.
Visualizing the Alarm
Some have used stripes to communicate information without the need for numbers and phrases, which take longer for the brain to register. University of Reading professor Ed Hawkins began his Climate Stripes project in 2018, collecting the global average yearly temperature since 1850. Red stripes show an increase in average temperature from the previous year, and the image follows an devastating pattern.
In a tweet from June, Hawkins re-stated why he used stripes for the project: “How do the warming stripes start conversations about climate change? They are stark visuals which, with a single glance, instantly communicate the simple message that the climate is heating up.”
Climate activist Greta Thunberg is using the Climate Stripes image on the cover of her book, The Climate Book. American politicians wore the Climate Stripes on facemasks at the State of the Union in 2020; The Economist has put the image on its cover; it’s even inspired a beer can design.
Whether as a helpful learning tool, a fun optical illusion, or a sleek design, stripes can tell so many stories to their audience without saying anything at all. Stripes can denote something classic or chaotic, ancient or modern. Their versatility makes them a staple and one of the most powerful tools a creator has.
Parallel blocks of high-contrast colors are one of the first patterns a newborn
can actually see. In the first months of life, when our still-developing eyes struggle to perceive anything subtle, one thing they can distinguish is stripes.
Sam Fowler
Motion Graphics
Shannon Sullivan
Story
Stripes have always held a unique power, harnessed by designers, marketers, and artists of every… well, stripe. Where do we even start? There’s Stripe (the brand), the White Stripes (the band), Adidas’ “three stripe” trademark, and Netflix’s ubiquitous striped intro animation. And more urgently, there are climate change researchers using the power of stripes to visually represent a warming planet. But before they were embraced by design icons and fashion visionaries, stripes were a mark of those alienated from mainstream society.
Jeffrey Kurtz
Design
But this advice goes against the phenomena found in the Helmholtz square illusion, in which a square made up of horizontal stripes actually appears to be narrower and taller than a square of the same size made up of vertical lines. Researchers at the University of York conducted a study in which more people thought a woman in a drawing wearing a horizontal-striped dress looked thinner than the same woman in a vertically-striped dress.
Masters of Disguise
THE POWER OF
Ed Hawkins, 'Climate Stripes'
In Medieval Europe, stripes were the uniform of marginalized peoples, like lepers, prostitutes and prisoners. According to Michel Pastoreau, author of the 2001 history The Devil’s Cloth, the devil himself is depicted in striped clothing in some medieval paintings.
Pastoreau asserts that the medieval eye was disturbed by surfaces that had ambiguous background and foreground colors. So most people within the standard social order avoided them, and those who did wear stripes were considered to be sinful.
Over time stripes outgrew their association with condemnation—the striped revolutionary flags of France and America were key positive steps on this front. In many non-European cultures, stripes never had that negative stigma—Jewish prayer shawls, or tallit, date back thousands of years. But why are stripes so popular? What exactly draws people to stripes?
In Medieval Europe, stripes were the uniform of marginalized peoples, like lepers and prisoners.
Stripes can deceive the eye. Of course, there’s the old adage about horizontal striped clothing making the wearer look wider; anyone who’s seen an episode of What Not to Wear can recall a scene forbidding these items. Fashion designers and stylists also recommend pants with vertical stripes for people who want to seem slimmer and taller. Interior designers often apply the same advice to home decor; they recommend painting walls with vertical stripes to give the illusion of higher ceilings, and horizontal stripes to make the room appear larger.
For stripes, there is enough complexity in the design, but an overpowering sense of order.