Colours, Forms, & PatternsAn illustrated bibliography of Mathilde Hertz. I built a website to illustrate the works of comparative psychologist Mathilde Hertz. Part web design, part graphic design, and part motion design, the project was a fun exercise in blending all these elements into one. At its core the project is a small piece of information design aimed at sparking curiosity and shedding some knowledge on the figure of Mathilde Hertz.

Sound & Music : Joe Watkinson

Website: https://mhertz.cargo.site

Motion Design, Graphic Design, Web Design

I first learnt of Mathilde Hertz when I came across some examples of shapes she had used in her experiments. I was immediately struck by the graphic quality of the shapes. Intrigued and curious to see if there were more examples, I stumbled upon a paper by Regina Kressley & Siegfried Jaeger, ‘Rediscovering a Missing Link: The Sensory Physiologist and Comparative Psychologist Mathilde Hertz (1891-1975) Siegfried Jaeger (2003).’. After reading the paper I became fascinated not only by her life and story but also by the titles of her articles. A complete list of her works was cited at the end of the paper. As an animal psychologist, her research covered a wide range of animal species, and the titles of her articles had something of a poetic and unusual tone to them which immediately captured my imagination. Titles such as ‘A training of bees to water’ and ‘Disappointment and Expectations in Hermit Crabs.’ I quickly decided to start working on a visual representation of her bibliography, thinking about how best to represent her body of work and bring those titles to life.

There were 32 articles in total. The illustrations themselves, although abstract, were inspired by the articles’ titles, Hertz’s own designs, and by Gestalt principles which informed most of Hertz’s work.
The challenge was to strike a balance between the academic and something more playful and vibrant. This had to be reflected both in the illustrations and the design of the web page itself.

The result is a self contained website with a functional feel. The website is divided into three parts. An interactive timeline to explore the key moments into Mathilde Hertz’s life. The bibliography, where you can explore her works as well as order them by Journal, Year and Subject, and the index where her works are catalogued into three different lists. The website was entireley custom coded on the Cargo3 platform. This was a great opportunity to brush up on some CSS, HTML and a bit of JavaScript.

Work

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