Viable London is a design studio recognized for its creative diversity and ingenuity. The studio designs furniture, lighting, and products, as well as conceptual installations and exhibitions, and works with international manufacturing companies and private commissions. Their distinctive Titanic Lamp design is sure to bring a “sinking feeling” to your bedroom or living room.

I just searched through the archives, and I cannot believe that the famous duck rabbit optical illusion has not been featured in the past. You’ve probably already seen this image, but it is worth another look because of its powerful simplicity.

Do you see a duck or a rabbit? Can you find both? The animal that you first see when you view this illusion may be a reflection of your own personality.

People have used wallpaper to decorate their walls forever. One clever way to make a small space memorable (and perhaps shocking the first time someone enters the room) is to utilize a wallpaper mural. In the example below, a mural has been placed on the back wall of a bathroom. It makes it appear as if the bathroom leads out onto a dock over a body of water.

Here is a very interesting optical illusion. Look at the abstract black and white image below. Can you figure out what it is supposed to be?

What do you see? When I first looked at this, like many others, I was very confused. It appears to be some sort of insect drawn with a black marker. Some people have described it as looking like a lobster or some other crustacean (a shrimp, perhaps?).

Would you be surprised to see cowboy’s face in this image? Now that you know what to look for, have another look. Can you see it?

This geometric optical illusion from the early 1900s is called the Ponzo illusion – named after Mario Ponzo, who was the first to demonstrate this effect.

The illusion uses linear perspective to confuse the brain into thinking that two lines are of different lengths. In the image below, the red line at the top of the figure appears to be longer than the red line at the bottom.

This phenomenon is still used by optical illusion artists today to trick the eye and deceive the mind.

Take a glance at the black and white optical illusion below. What is the first thing that you see?

This cow optical illusion is an ambiguous image. Depending on how you look at it, you can see two different scenes in the same space. Do you see the cow feeding on grass while looking at you or do you see two animals feeding on grass while facing each other?

The official title of this work is Two Indian Buffaloes / A Cow Grazing. It was created by Arvind Narale who specializes in pen and ink drawings that explore multiple meaningful images hidden in one space.

(via Upside Downside Up)

According to neuroscience, everything we experience is a creation of our imagination. Optical illusions use color, patterns, and light to create images that can mislead your brain. They create a false perception that can make you see things that may or may not be real. Still, learning visual illusions is a great way to nurture creativity, which is an important skill in higher education.

Studying patterns and memorizing information presented in optical illusions can boost your visual literacy and help you process information faster and more efficiently. This is because of the close relationship between perception and performance. Visual illusions enhance your mental agility by making it easy to connect and predict things within the context of an image. So, the impact of optical illusions on the development process and perception of the world can give you an upper hand in school.

In this post, we explore some of the top reasons why you may want to study optical illusions.