White space is not passé!
Whenever most people think of white space they think of it as being dead space or wasted space. The novice designer will be tempted to cram every single inch of a page with something. That’s a fatal error and a sign that you are indeed an amateur.
The white space in a page is what’s organizes the page. It’s what separates and differentiates the elements within a page. It’s the margins of a page, the space between columns, the space around pictures, the space between words, etc…
Don’t be fooled! Just because it’s called “white space”, doesn’t mean it’s always white. It’s whatever color (or solid background) your paper is.
Remember no white space = design chaos.
Places you can add white space to your design to make it stand out:
- Margins around the page
- Between the columns of text
- Line spacing
- Space between paragraphs
- Space between title and the rest of the text
- Space before subheads
- Between items of a bullet or number lists
- Around the graphics
- If using lines or other graphic elements, around those
- Individual characters if they’re too close (and tighten those t o o wide)
WHITE SPACE NO-NOS
Floating objects: Everything should be used in proportion. You don’t want the elements in your design to look like they’re “floating” on a page.
Trapped space: Everything should be used in moderation. There is such a thing as “trapped space”. This is when you have “rivers” of white in a paragraph that has been justified, using too much expanded type, too much space between columns, etc..
You have to juggle all the different elements until they look as though they work as a unit.
WHITE SPACE IN ACTION
To see effective use of white space, check out my sample here.
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