White Space and High Design

29 October 2005 12:40:11

My professional work recently has revolved around a fairly high-profile (in La Crosse terms) re-brand project for a local company. Research for this project has brought me back to an internal debate that I’ve had since my first design courses as an undergrad almost five years ago.

When considering “high-design” or good design versus “low-design,” I’ve noticed one specific tendency that appears more often than any other—that of white space or the space without content in a layout. It seems to me that good design often has a higher percentage of unused space in a layout whereas low design is quite often exactly the opposite.

I feel that this issue has become even more magnified as we enter a world where everything we do is digitized. The internet is a medium that stresses the need to compact as much content into as little space as possible, whether this compacting takes place in terms of visual layout, available screen real estate or in terms of meeting the low bandwidth requirements of our internet connections.

In any case, as I am considering designs for the re-brand (especially for the web user-interface) I want to be continually aware of how much white space I allow my self to use. My goal for the re-brand is to find a balance between a compact internet driven design and a strong, compelling design with plenty of white space. I’ll keep you posted on the progess.