I’ve just added a supplement in response to a reader’s question regarding my involvement with Altair Designs and a related design, Fig 10.30, “Circle Methodology,” in Part Three of my latest publication, “Visual Thinking, Seeing Through Time.” Go to the SUPPLEMENTS page.
As a response to the reader’s question I’ve written a short article about Altair as a means to cultivate perceptual and adaptive reasoning in an age when ‘thinking’ is out of fashion, replaced by emotive one-liners and entertainment. It’s the Altair designs that have the unique property of stimulating perceptual reasoning. The designs need to be paired with other mental exercises, such as Edward de Bono’s “Lateral Thinking.”
My involvement with what later became known as Altair Designs began in 1968, while working in London with Dr. Ensor Holiday. The initial impulse arose from a misinterpretation of a geometric construction method featured in Les Éléments de l’Art Arabe by Jules Bourgoin (1879). The misinterpretation led to an unexpected visual logic—one that departed from traditional ornamental intent and evolved into a family of geometric designs with a distinctive, compelling perceptual character. From that single divergence, a new system emerged: rigorously structured, non‑representational, and unusually effective at engaging perception, attention, and imaginative interpretation.