Though we know Taylor wasn’t singing about graphic design or web development, we’re happy to have a soundtrack for this important topic: Blank Space
More commonly referred to as “White Space” in a design context, leaving white space in a brochure, website, poster, flyer… pretty much everything, is an important part of design. It’s easy to see white space and think “Let’s make the logo bigger and fill that wasted space!” We’re here today to tell you that white space around text and other elements of a design is an intentional part of the design and should be looked at as part of the design – not a place for more information. White space helps the reader or viewer of a design understand which parts of the design are the most important and helps ease readability.
Take Google’s home page, for example:
Consider the purpose of this web page. It’s searching, right? Not the history of Google, not information about how you can advertise with Google, or even information about the many products Google owns. Just searching. Google understands that there are other places to share more information and left their home page with plenty of white space so the viewer’s attention is drawn to the purpose of the page – the search box.
On an informative flyer or brochure, your purpose is to inform. For this purpose, you’d want to include more information than Google has on their front page. However, there is still an important balance of the information you need to include and the white space your designer chooses to include. When we design for you, our goal is to draw attention to the important information in your flyer or brochure – one of our tools is white space. Keep this in mind when you review your designs. There are times when it’s helpful and important to make your logo bigger, but remember, there are also times when we’ve left a certain amount of white space around your logo to draw attention to it.